by Calculated Risk on 1/08/2011 11:05:00 AM

According to the BLS employment report - and combining October through December - retailers hired seasonal workers at well above last year, and somewhat close to the pre-crisis levels.

Click on graph for larger in graph gallery.

Here is a graph of the historical net retail jobs added for October, November and December by year (not seasonally adjusted).

This really shows the collapse in retail hiring in 2008 and modest rebound in 2009.

Retailers hired 646 thousand workers (NSA) net during the 2010 holiday season. This is well above the 501 hired in 2009, but still below the pre-crisis average of 720 thousand for the same three months.

This suggests retailers were definitely more optimistic about the recent holiday season.

That is the good news. Here is a repeat of a depressing graph.

This graph is in percentage terms. In actual numbers, there are 7.24 million fewer jobs now than in December 2007.

If the economy adds 100,000 jobs per month, it will take about 72 months (6 years) to return to the December 2007 level. At 200,000 per month, it will take 36 months. At 300,000 per month(unlikely any time soon) it will take 2 years.

I'm going to need a bigger graph ...

And that doesn't include the need for about 125,000 job per month to offset population growth. It will be a long long uphill climb.

Employment posts yesterday:
• Employment: The Declining Participation Rate
• Employment Summary and Part Time Workers, Unemployed over 26 Weeks
• December Employment Report: 103,000 Jobs, 9.4% Unemployment Rate
• Employment Graph Gallery