Melinda Pitts of the Atlanta Fed took a look at the three most recent recessions to get a sense of when the labor market recovers relative to the end of a recession.  She found good news in the job recovery after the 1980-82 recession.  Thile that period had the largest loss of jobs, the labor market recovered much quicker--it took just seven months for employment to reach per-recession levels.  Recovery after 90-91 and 2001 took much longer.

The question then becomes, what does previous experience imply for the path of employment after the current recession? If the current recession ended today with a 2.7 percent job decline, and postrecession employment growth resembled the recovery from the 1981–82 recession, then employment would return to prerecessionary levels in approximately 14 months. But if the employment growth path is more similar to the two most recent recessions, then it would take well over eight years for employment to return to prerecession levels. Of course, history is unlikely to repeat itself exactly, but what history does tell us is that the employment recovery will lag the recovery in overall economic activity, and possibly by a lot.

You can read Pitts's full analysis here.