The Job Gap in US – 5.6 million jobs as of August 2014 finds The Hamilton Project

Each month, The Hamilton Project calculates America’s “jobs gap,” or the number of jobs that the U.S. economy needs to create in order to return to pre-recession employment levels while absorbing the people who newly enter the labor force each month. As of the end of August 2014, our nation faces a jobs gap of 5.6 million jobs.

If the economy continues to add 175,000 jobs per month, the average rate since the jobs recovery began in March 2010, it will take until July 2018 to close the jobs gap. Under the slightly more optimistic rate of 207,000 jobs per month, the average rate of job growth over the preceding 12 months, the jobs gap will close in October 2017.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at A Tale of Two Jobs Gaps: Private-Sector Recovery and Public-Sector Stagnation | Brookings Institution.