April job growth - still treading water

Economist Mark Thoma at Moneywatch:

Recovery isn't reaching the long-term unemployed

The (Labor Department's April) jobs numbers are out...and they show the unemployment rate increasing to 9.0 percent, and the creation of 244,000 new jobs (the private sector added 268,000 will government jobs fell by 24,000 — the net figure of 244,000 was better than many analysts expected). This does add jobs over and above the 100,000-150,000 needed each month to keep up with population growth. But remembering that we have millions and millions of people out of work, at this rate it will take more than five years to get back to full employment (job growth during the recoveries from previous recessions was much stronger than this).