So, the NFP Numbers Came Out Yesterday

The Non-Farm Payroll report for October came out Friday, and it was much better than expected, growing by 151,000 jobs, much better than the forecast of 70,000 with unemployment (U-3) remaining at 9.6%, while the broader U-6^* fell by ¹⁄₁₀ of a percent to 17%.

Even more significantly, it is more than the 125-150 thousand required to meet the natural increase in the workforce, meaning that at current rates, using the lower growth number, it would only take 26⅔ years for us to recover our job losses since Wall Street imploded.

By my math, this still qualifies as a jobless recovery, particularly since the total labor force has been shrinking as workers have become discouraged or otherwise left.

^* "Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force."