The three-month average of job growth has been 176,000 jobs per month, the Economic Policy Institute pointed out. While that’s more than enough to keep unemployment from rising, it’s still not good enough, given the deep hole the job market is still in.
“The labor market continues to very slowly improve,” the EPI wrote in a press release, “but it is a far cry from the 300,000 or 400,000 jobs we would need per month to get back to full employment in a reasonable timeframe.”