Ain’t my definition. See Wikipedia or your favorite business/investment journal.
I have no doubt that a job loss is tough on an individual (been there). Many people would like to assign the term ‘recession’ to some sort of level of hopelessness. Problem is that this is kind of hard to measure.
The term “pending recession” sort of acknowledges the collective pain while ridiculing the strict definition. Perhaps that is suitable.
I think regional recession(s) fits our situation a little better.