Jobs Not Quite Back To Pre-Pandemic Levels But Getting There

The U.S. hasn't fully recovered economically from the pandemic, but it's getting there, and the pandemic still isn't over. The U.S. economy is on track to a full jobs recovery sometime this year.

From the New York Times which reports that:

The number of long-term unemployed people — those jobless for six months or more — declined to 1.7 million, down from four million a year earlier, though still 570,000 higher than in Feb. 2020 just before the pandemic took root. . . . 

There are 2.9 million fewer jobs now than before the pandemic, but as Elise Gould of Economic Policy Institute points out, if you take population growth into account, the shortfall is 4.5 million.

Employment recoveries in the 2001 and 2007 recessions were much slower (via Calculated Risk).