This is review material, just to give some background. The economic downturn and recovery we went through was longer than people have been used to. Below I'll explain what the job data shows happened.
For the U.S. as a whole the downward trend in the job market began in March, 2001. The high point in the national job market was in the prior month (February), with 132,551,000 people employed.
From February through August the U.S. lost 775,000 jobs, due to the economic recession that had hit. From September, 2001 through May, 2002 the U.S. lost another 1,446,000 jobs. I attribute this to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the subsequent military campaign in Afghanistan. I'll just note that it's been my observation from looking at past employment data, corrolating it with military campaigns, that almost anytime we have a major military deployment somewhere in the world, we see a loss of employment here in the U.S. I chose May as the endpoint for this measurement because the data shows the rate of decline in the employment market becomes less steep after this.
In total, from February, 2001 to May, 2002 the U.S. lost 2,221,000 jobs. The unemployment rate went from 4.2% in February, 2001 to 5.8%.
The employment market continued its decline through August, 2003. The unemployment rate reached a high of 6.3% in June, 2003. By August the U.S. had lost a total of 2,754,000 jobs. Note that most of the job losses occurred from 2001 to 2002.
In September, 2003 the job market began its recovery. 2003 ended the year by breaking even. It had gained about as many jobs in the latter part of the year as had been lost earlier in the year. 2003 ended the year with an unemployment rate of 5.7%. The upward employment trend continued from there on out.
In 2004 the U.S. had a gain of 2,097,000 jobs, and ended the year with an unemployment rate of 5.4%. The U.S. broke even with the previous high point (February, 2001) in February, 2005. At that point the unemployment rate was still 5.4%. If we compare the unemployment rate with what it was in February, 2001–4.2%–we can see that even though the number of jobs evened out, the job market was different from what it was 4 years before.
Back around 2000/2001, economists said that there were about 150,000 people who entered the job market in the U.S. every month. As time has gone on this has declined. The last I heard from an economist, they estimate now that only about 100,000 people enter the job market every month. What this means, though, is that while the job market was in decline from 2001 to 2003 about 4 million new workers entered the job market. This would probably explain the higher unemployment rate in Feb., 2005 vs. Feb., 2001.
2005 was the year that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas. Katrina hit in late August. Rita hit in late September. The employment data for the U.S. showed a dip in employment in September and October. But it picked up again in the following months.
The U.S. gained 1,981,000 jobs in 2005, and ended the year with an unemployment rate of 4.9%. Obviously this wasn't as good as 2004, but it came pretty close. I think the disparity can be attributed to the devastating hurricane damage and the large disruption it caused in the lives of people and businesses.
From the data I have as of this writing (in 2006), the U.S. has had a net gain of 2,555,000 jobs above and beyond the previous high point in February, 2001.
Here's a table of the employment data for 2005:
| Month | Change | Num. Employed | Unemployment Rate |
| Jan. | +76,000 | 132,471,000 | 5.2% |
| Feb. | +265,000 | 132,736,000 | 5.4% |
| Mar. | +140,000 | 132,876,000 | 5.1% |
| Apr. | +228,000 | 133,104,000 | 5.1% |
| May | +106,000 | 133,210,000 | 5.1% |
| June | +166,000 | 133,376,000 | 5.0% |
| July | +241,000 | 133,617,000 | 5.0% |
| Aug. | +175,000 | 133,792,000 | 4.9% |
| Sept. | +48,000 | 133,840,000 | 5.1% |
| Oct. | +37,000 | 133,877,000 | 4.9% |
| Nov. | +354,000 | 134,231,000 | 5.0% |
| Dec. | +145,000 | 134,376,000 | 4.9% |
