A number of pundits warn that the U.S. is suffering from an era of jobless recoveries. It’s a popular complaint and it’s surely grounded in legitimate concerns about the labor market’s strength. But taken at face value, the claim that we’re in a jobless recovery is false. The economy’s recovering and new jobs are being created. Since the private-sector labor market started growing in the latest cycle in March 2010, total nonfarm private payrolls are higher by 1.5 million through February 2011, based on seasonally adjusted figures, which are used in the analysis below as well. That’s a fraction of the jobs lost in the Great Recession, but modest job growth isn’t the same thing as a jobless recovery.