12 Years Needed To Reach Pre-Recession US Employment Levels

From "Taking the Job Gap to the State Level: A Closer Look at the August Employment Numbers" by The Hamilton Project, The Brookings Institution:

The August “job gap” is estimated at 12.4 million jobs, up 180,000 jobs from July.***If the economy adds about 208,000 jobs per month, which was the average monthly rate for the best year of job creation in the 2000s, then it will take until February 2024—almost 12 and a half years—to close the job gap. Given a more optimistic rate of 321,000 jobs per month, which was the average monthly rate for the best year of job creation in the 1990s, the economy will reach pre-recession employment levels by December 2016—over five years.

The solid line shows the net number of jobs lost since the Great Recession began. The broken lines track how  long it will take to close the job gap under alternative assumptions about the rate of job creation going forward.