For all of 2004, 2.231 million jobs were added, the best since 1999.

Remember the three million lost jobs that John Kerry was campaigning on? I guess they were found.

When Mr. Bush took office in January 2001, the nation had 132.4 million payroll jobs. After declining by more than 2 million jobs over the next two years, employment climbed back to 132.3 million jobs in December.

That number is expected to be revised up by about 200,000 jobs next month, when the Labor Department makes an annual statistical revision based on new unemployment insurance data.

That means that there will probably be a net gain of a few hundred thousand once January is counted.