February 25, 2008 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Duration of work stoppages beginning in 2007

There were 21 lockouts and strikes involving 1,000 or more workers in 2007.

Duration of work stoppages beginning in 2007
[Chart data—TXT]

Numerous work stoppages in 2007 were short in duration. Six work stoppages lasted 2 days or less. Another six work stoppages lasted between 3 and 10 says.

The mean length of a work stoppage in 2007 was 10.5 days, down from 26.5 days in 2006.

These data are from the BLS Work Stoppages Program. Learn more about work stoppages from "Major Work Stoppages in 2007," (PDF) (HTML) news release USDL 08-0202. Major work stoppages are defined as strikes or lockouts that idle 1,000 or more workers and last at least one shift.

 

Related TED article: 

Of interest

Spotlight on Statistics: The Recession of 2007–2009

The most recent recession in the United States began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009, though many of the statistics that describe the U.S. economy have yet to return to their pre-recession values. In this Spotlight, we present BLS data that compare the recent recession to previous recessions. Read more »