A line chart showing total payroll employment before, during, and after the recessions of 1990–91 and 2001. The recent path was tracking that for the early 1990s recession until the first four months of this year, when employment patterns began to underperform those seen over a decade ago. This divergence is attributed to one-time factors such as the War in Iraq, unusually harsh winter weather, a global recession, and the recent outbreak of sever acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), especially in Asia.