Last year the CBO estimated that 187,000 new jobs would need to be created each month to keep the unemployment rate steady.
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2011/07/how-many-jobs-are-needed-over-next-year.html
The jobs situation is rather bleak going forward:
http://ceoworld.biz/ceo/2011/07/25/how-many-new-jobs-does-the-united-states-need-job-gap
After nearly two brutal years, the Great Recession appears to be over, at least technically. New jobs will come open in the United States But many will have different skill requirements than the old ones. Brooking Institute, a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, DC, estimates the June “job gap” is at 12.3 million jobs, up 150,000 jobs from May. (Job gap represents the number of jobs that the U.S. economy needs to create in order to return to pre-recession employment levels while absorbing the 125,000 people who enter the labor force each month.)
Based on that job gap estimate and historical trend in previous recession-to-recovery cycles, assuming 208,000 new jobs per month (best average rate in the 2000’s), it will take 12 years or until October 2023 to close the job gap.
Thanks for the summary Deo Valente. I would love to see all the people who have given up looking, form some sort of group so their numbers could be known. This smoke and mirrors routine that ignores them is rotten.