How Many Jobs Do We Need for the Recession to Go Away?

About 151,000 jobs were created in October, and 95,000 the month before. If you got one of them, good for you. And if you didn't, well, you're in good company. How many jobs will it take for the recession to go away? According to the Brookings Institution, a whole lot more than those two numbers. Try these stats on for size:

If there were 208,000 jobs created a month (that's the average monthly rate for the best year of job creation this decade, according to Brookings), it would take 11.5 years to reach the pre-recession employment levels. If 321,000 jobs were created each month (the average monthly rate for the best year of job creation in the 1990s), it would still take almost five years.

These aren't even necessarily good jobs. These are any jobs -- flipping burgers, bagging groceries, greeting Walmart shoppers.