UPDATE: Posted the wrong version but caught my error a few minutes later. This is the correct version.
There was clearly a slowdown in 2003, but the rate of increase appears to be back on track somewhat. The last couple months look like it's trying to decide which way to go. This Friday, the payroll numbers for February will be released. I will be posting an update to this chart which for better or for worse, might be just as interesting as the raw numbers.
UPDATE: I just crunched a few numbers that you might want to chew on this week. Since May, the percentage rate increases have been 1.2, 1.3, 1.3, 1.5, 1.5, 1.6, 1.6, 1.7, 1.7. Growth is steady but slow. To really look like we're back on track, we would probably want (at least) 1.8% growth for the previous 12 months. That would require over 200,000 jobs (depending on how you prefer to round your figures, I'm being generous). We only saw that kind of growth 4 times last year, but we need to see more of it. 150,000 this month (like we had in January), would put us further behind where we should be at this point in a recovery.
Growth is steady but slow. So slow that the employment to population ratio is stuck on 62.4%. After the employment declines of the early 80's and early 90's, we had steady and rapid employment increases. There's the distinction.