Jobs From Another Angle

Last week’s relatively strong employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics prompted an economist named Bill McBride to wonder: Has America's job situation returned to pre-recession levels? And if not, when would it likely get there?

The short answer is: Sometime in the middle of 2014, payrolls should reach the same level they were prior to the recession. We’re still down 1.5 million jobs from where we were when the recession started in November 2007 – including a total of 976,000 private sector jobs. At current growth rates, we are about eight months away from making up that much ground.

On the other hand, the population and workforce has been growing all that time, too. Even the previous level of jobs would leave us with an unemployment rate higher than we had before the recession. According to one estimate, returning us to pre-recession employment rates, at the current level of job growth, would take another five years.