Congress passed several bills meant in part to promote and accelerate a recovery in the labor market from the Great (2007-2009) Recession. One of the bills, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA; P.L. 111-5 ), required the Council of Economic Advisers and executive branch agencies to estimate the number of jobs dependent on some or all of the act's provisions. Although such estimates are available, the methodologies used to estimate the number of jobs created or maintained have been criticized. In addition, ARRA was not the only job creation bill enacted into law in recent years. Congress did not include a requirement to estimate job growth associated with the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act of 2010 ( P.L. 111-147 ), for example. Members of Congress nonetheless remain interested in the labor market's response to these measures to help them decide how well the legislation has worked and whether additional job creation as well as retraining legislation may be warranted in light of the pace and composition of job growth during the ongoing recovery. This report provides a snapshot of the current situation in the labor market to better inform policymakers with regard to further assisting the unemployed, such as workers laid off from industries that may have permanently downsized employment (e.g., construction). One way to assess the extent and nature of the recovery in the labor market is to compare employment data from the recession's end in June 2009 (i.e., the trough of the business cycle) with more recent data gathered in surveys that the government regularly conducts. Accordingly, to determine the extent of job growth thus far in the recovery, this report examines the number of jobs from the trough of the business cycle to September 2012 (the latest month for which data were available at the time of the report's preparation). To provide historical context, the timing and strength of job growth during the current recovery is compared with the prior 10 recoveries. Data for September 2012 are compared with December 2007, as well, to discern how close the number of jobs has come to its level at the recession's onset (i.e., the peak of the business cycle). Lastly, employment data by job and individual characteristics for December 2007, June 2009, and September 2012 are analyzed to ascertain how different sectors and demographic groups have fared during the recession and recovery. The Business Cycle Dating Committee at the National Bureau of Economic Research announced that the 11 th recession of the postwar period ended in June 2009, but job growth typically does not commence until a recovery has been underway for some time. Initially, some had hoped that the deep 2007-2009 recession would not be followed by a "jobless recovery" such as occurred after the immediately preceding recessions in 1990-1991 and 2001, when employers kept shedding jobs for a very long time after their end. The hope was instead for a quick and strong rebound such as occurred after the severe recessions of 1973-1975 and 1981-1982. Neither these nor the other U.S. recessions of the postwar period were precipitated by a financial crisis, however. The evidence from other countries that experienced recessions associated with financial crises instead suggests a slow recovery for the United States, and as discussed below, this has been the reality. A jobless recovery prevailed until October 2010, 16 months into the recovery, across all employers in the nonfarm economy. At that point, net job growth began not because public-sector employment started to rise but because it fell more slowly while private-sector employment continued to grow. As shown in Figure 1 , the number of jobs on all employers' payrolls fell between June 2009 and March 2010. After briefly rising, it resumed declining through September 2010. Job growth during the first half of 2010 was fueled in part by the Census Bureau's temporarily hiring workers to help conduct the decennial count of the U.S. population. Since then, declining employment has occurred at state and local governments due to budget difficulties. (Additional discussion of employment trends in government and other industries appears later in the report.) Although aggregate employment began to rise after September 2010, the monthly increase in jobs has been too small to have had much of an effect on the U.S. unemployment rate. A commonly cited rule-of-thumb is that in order to keep pace with population growth a net increase of roughly 125,000 jobs per month is needed to keep the unemployment rate unchanged. In 2011, about 150,000 net jobs per month were added on average, and in the first nine months of 2012, an average of about 130,000 private- and public-sector jobs were added each month. A jobless recovery prevailed across firms in the private-nonfarm sector until March 2010. As shown in Figure 1 , sustained job growth did not begin until nine months from the latest recession's end in June 2009. Despite the number of jobs at private-sector firms in September 2012 being almost 3.1 million above its level at the recovery's start, the recent pace of job growth at these employers means a few more years will likely elapse before the almost 7.7 million private-sector jobs lost during the Great Recession are recouped. Employment rebounded at firms in the private sector more quickly during all but two of the prior 10 recoveries of the postwar period. As noted above, private-sector employment began to steadily rise at nine months into the current recovery. In contrast, employment in the private sector did not start a sustained increase until 12 months into the recovery from the 1990-1991 recession, and until 21 months into the recovery from the 2001 recession. Private-sector employment rebounded more strongly during all but one of the prior 10 recoveries. As shown in column 7 of Table 1 , employment at private-sector firms in September 2012 was 3.3% above its level at the recovery's start. In contrast, at a point comparable to September 2012 (39 months from the 2001 recession's end), private-sector employment was up only 1.3% from its level at the outset of the recovery from the 2001 recession. Although total nonfarm employment started to steadily rise earlier (12 months) into the recovery from the 1990-1991 recession compared with the current recovery (16 months), it began to trend upward much later (22 months) into the recovery from the 2001 recession. As shown in column 7 of Table 1 , overall employment in September 2012 was 2.3% above its level at the recovery's start. In contrast, at 39 months after the 2001 recession's end, employment across all employers was only 1.4% higher than at the outset of the recovery. The less sluggish pace of job growth during the current recovery compared with the recovery from the 2001 recession may be partly related to differences in the stimulus legislation enacted to mitigate the two recessions. The last two columns of Table 1 show how much employment must increase from its level in September 2012 to recoup all the jobs lost since the beginning of the Great Recession. In September 2012, total nonfarm employment was 4.5 million jobs below its level 57 months earlier at the recession's start and private-sector employment was 4.1 million jobs below its level in December 2007. In contrast, total and private sector employment at 57 months from the start of all prior postwar recessions exceeded or more nearly approached their pre-recession levels. For example, compared with September 2012's 3.2% shortfall from total nonfarm employment in December 2007, overall employment at 57 months from the beginning of the 2001 recession was 1.7% above its level at the recession's outset. Compared with September 2012's 3.6% shortfall from private-sector employment in December 2007, private-sector employment at 57 months from the beginning of the 2001 recession was 1.2% higher than at the recession's outset. Some had looked to the 2001 recession and subsequent jobless recovery, when the rate of increase in productivity growth also uncharacteristically rose, to gauge how long it might be before all jobs lost since December 2007 are recouped. The rate of increase in productivity growth usually does not rise during recessions, but it did so during and for some years after the 2001 recession; it did so again during and immediately after the 2007-2009 recession. (An increasing productivity growth rate enables businesses to produce the same amount of goods and services with fewer workers.) After the annual rate of change in nonfarm business productivity had diminished to a decade-low of 0.6% in 2006, it measured 2.3% in 2009 and 4.1% in 2010. Partly due to similarly high rates of increase it took 47 months (until February 2005) from the 2001 recession's start before all job losses were recouped and 50 months (until May 2005) before private sector job losses were recouped. However, in November 2011—47 months from the latest recession's start—all jobs lost during the 2007-2009 recession had not been recouped. Similarly, by February 2012 (50 months from the latest recession's start), the private sector had not fully recouped all the jobs lost during the latest recession. In light of the sharp drop in the rate of productivity growth in 2011 to 0.4%, the slowness of the employment rebound would be surprising but for the 2007-2009 recession's association with a financial crisis. The experiences of other countries suggest it takes longer for economies to fully recover from such recessions compared with recessions unrelated to financial crises. Some within the public-policy community also believe that an increase in offshoring of jobs historically performed in the United States may be an additional factor sapping the strength of job growth. This perspective arguably contributed to Congress's support for a Buy America provision in the ARRA to increase demand for goods manufactured in the United States. Although not expressly intended to dampen offshoring, a tax provision in the HIRE Act encourages firms to maintain and expand their U.S. employment as well.