COVID Impact on US Employment
Private sector employment decreased by over 20 million jobs or 16% between March and April, as shown in this waterfall chart. March employment was 129 million jobs according to the ADP National Employment Report. April employment fell to 109 million.
The leisure and hospitality sector was hit hardest. It lost 8.6 million jobs, which was a 51% decline between March and April. Other sectors experienced smaller losses as measured in both absolute number of jobs and in percentage change. The trade, transportation and utilities sector lost 3.4 million jobs (12% decline), construction lost 2.5 million (33%), and manufacturing lost 1.7 million (13%).
COVID Impact on US Employment in a Cascade/Waterfall Chart with Data Row
How I Made this Cascade/Waterfall Chart with Data Row
Here is the ADP employment data I used to create the cascade/waterfall chart:
Here's how I made the chart:
- start with the Excel download of ADP employment data
- add the calculations for change from April to May in absolute terms and in percentages
- create a cascade chart in PowerPoint and copy the relevant data from Excel into the Mekko Graphics Data Editor
- move data for smaller sectors into third row of chart and then add them to the other sector
- show the % change as a data row
- add the bar comparison line and show value and percentage
- use data scale to change numbers from thousands to millions
- format bar totals and bar comparison line value to add M as suffix and show with one decimal place
- add y axis title and hide axis line, tick marks and values
- add axis break to shrink bars for March and April
- set coloring mode to color by bars
- change color of April bar to match March
- adjust internal margins and bar gaps
- manually edit data row label to show on two lines
Take This Chart and Make It Your Own
Download this chart and edit it using Mekko Graphics. See more waterfall charts in our chart gallery. Here are some other charts that may be of interest:
