Today’s Employment Situation Report showed a slight improvement with net nonfarm payrolls increasing 162,000 since February while the unemployment rate stayed flat at 9.7%.
Of course, considering the state of the long term unemployed results in a less optimistic take with the number of workers unemployed at least 27 weeks jumping by over 400K workers and all measures of employment duration increasing.
Also, its important to consider that nonfarm payrolls are still 1.76% below the level seen in March 2008 and some 5.94% below the peak level seen in December of 2007.