Our prolonged employment gap Commentary: Weâre only halfway through the pain, suffering WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) â Everyone knows that the Great Recession has inflicted tremendous damage to the lives and fortunes of millions of Americans. But what you may not know is that most of the suffering is still to come. Weâre not even halfway done with this mess. The economy has been growing for 31 months now, and employment has risen by 3.2 million over the past two years, but thereâs still a long way to go before the economy is back to full employment of around 5.5%. Public and private forecasters agree that weâll probably have five, six or seven more years of elevated unemployment, wasted lives and squandered potential. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/our-prolonged-employment-gap-2012-02-16