"[The drop in the unemployment rate] represents a remarkably speedy recovery in the labor market—attaining sub-5 percent unemployment a mere 17 months after the end of the deepest recession in modern times. By contrast, in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the jobless rate did not reach 4.8 percent until January 2016, six and a half years after the technical end of that recession."

Neil Irwin, a senior economics correspondent for The Upshot (a New York Times’ newsletter), writing late last week after the release of September’s jobs report in his essay, “The New Jobs Numbers Are Pretty Good, Actually”