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The United States has finally recovered all the jobs lost during the Great Recession

By Nikhil Sonnad
Published

The US economy added 217,000 jobs in May. The unemployment rate held steady at 6.3%, a five-and-a-half year low.

With last month’s job growth, the US has finally recovered all of the jobs it lost during the Great Recession. (That’s without adjusting for population growth; economists estimate there are about 7 million more working-age Americans today than there were at the previous employment peak in January 2008.)

Here’s the breakdown of employment status for all Americans age 16 and above:

Here’s what job creation and loss looked like in various industries last month:

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