New Employment Record, But with Ugly Truths

It's been six and a half years since the American workforce last set an employment record. That record, of 138.365 million nonfarm employees, grew further and further out of reach as the United States plunged into a terrible recession. Then, as the recovery chugged along with underwhelming speed and strength, it began to seem that a new record might take a record-breaking amount of time to arrive. Our new record-high jobs tally announced today, at 138.463 million, has indeed taken far longer than any postwar recovery to claim its new high. At 76 months, it surpasses the four-year recovery from the dot-com collapse by over two years.