Did you know that seasonally adjusted full-time employment in September 2011 was lower than it was when the recession officially ended in June 2009, and that this was the case for 26 of the first 27 post-recession months? What’s more, the economy had over 8.7 million fewer full-time workers in November 2011 than it did when full-time employment peaked four years earlier in November 2007.

Full-time employment finally surpassed the June 2009 level for two consecutive months in October and November. Hopefully it will keep going up, but the economic policy barriers to continued improvement are quite substantial.

For those who are wondering, during the first 29 months after November 1982, the official end of the Reagan-era recession according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, full-time employment increased by almost 8 million:

Currently, the economy has 417,000 more full-time workers than it did when the recession officially ended in June 2009.

Readers will also see that the increases in the number of full-timers continued to climb after that. By the end of 1986, over 11 million more Americans (almost 14%) were working full-time than were doing so at the end of that era’s recession.