It took two years to wipe out 8.7 million American jobs but more than four years to gain them all back.
That's according to the U.S. Department of Labor's latest jobs report, which shows the U.S. economy added 217,000 jobs in May. With that job growth, there are now more jobs in the country than ever before.
The last time Americans were near this point was January 2008, just before massive layoffs swept throughout the country, leading the unemployment rate to spike to 10%. The unemployment rate is unchanged at 6.3% for May, and much has improved since the worst of the crisis.
Yet, this isn't the moment to break out the champagne. Given population growth over the last four years, the economy still needs a whopping seven million jobs truly to return to a healthy place, according to some experts.
As of May, about 3.4 million Americans had been unemployed for six months or more, and 7.3 million were stuck in part-time jobs although they wanted to work full-time. Both these numbers are still elevated compared to historic norms, and are of concern to Federal Reserve officials, who will meet in two weeks to re-evaluate their stimulus policies.
Overall, this has been the longest jobs recovery since the department started tracking jobs data in 1939. Economists predict it will take two to three more years to return to "full employment," which they define as an unemployment rate around 5.5%.
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