The story of this recession's unemployment

A tiny piece of the answer:

1. Firings had a one month spike in January 2009 (a month with a high number of firings to begin with) but the series has stayed about where it usually is (maybe 10% higher if you ignore the recent dip). The story of this recession isn’t of people losing their jobs.
2. Looking at the dramatic decrease in hirings, the story of the recession is that people aren’t finding new jobs.

Quits also dropped quite a lot. More here.