Six-and-a-half years after the Great Recession began — and five years after it officially ended — the U.S. has finally surpassed its pre-crisis employment peak. But the job market is far from fully healed.
U.S. employers added 217,000 jobs in May, bringing total non-farm employment to 138.5 million – 113,000 more than the 138.4 million jobs that existed in December 2007, the first month of the recession. It took 76 months to regain the nearly 9 million jobs lost in the recession, making this by bar the slowest jobs recovery since World War II. (If any of this sounds familiar, you’re right: Private-sector employment returned to its pre-recession peak in March.)
