This morning's jobs report marked a significant milestone for the American economy. In March we added 192,000 jobs, for the second strong month in a row following February's revised number of 197,000 jobs. And that means the private sector has finally returned to its pre-recession peak in terms of total employment, with the economy now having gained back the more than 8 million jobs it had lost.
Despite all the new jobs, and the fact that January and February's figures were also revised upward, the headline unemployment rate didn't change in March, remaining at 6.7 percent. That's in part because the Bureau of Labor Statistics also reported that the American work force expanded during the month.
Obviously, it's taken a long time to get here. According to the Labor Department, this has been the slowest jobs recovery on record since they began tracking such data back in 1939. But it might actually be gaining steam - the 192,000 private sector jobs added in March were the most in four months. All of March's new jobs were in the private sector, as government hiring stayed flat.
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