The evolution of recession - Job Changes

Horizontal axis shows months. Vertical axis shows the ratio of that month’s nonfarm payrolls to the nonfarm payrolls at the start of recession. Note: Because employment is a lagging indicator, the dates for these employment trends are not exactly synchronized with National Bureau of Economic Research’s official business cycle dates.The economy added 162,000 jobs in March, the biggest monthly net gain in three years.

The chart above shows job changes in this recession compared to recent ones, with the blue line representing the current downturn. The line has ticked upward, but still has a long way to go before the job market fully recovers to its pre-recession level. Since the downturn began in December 2007, the economy has shed about 5.9 percent of its nonfarm payroll jobs.
The unemployment rate (measured by a different government survey, and based on how many people are without jobs but are looking for work) stayed steady at 9.7 percent in March. The divergence between the payroll growth and the flat unemployment rate is partly because more people are joining (or rejoining) the labor force and looking for jobs.