OP here. For the PP who asked, I am asking only about the local job market. I work in a high tech environment and I feel my company is very picky with whom they hire. They also have an unofficial policy of making life very uncomfortable for the bottom 10 percent. So if they purge the bottom enough years and hire only stars, well it just makes everything more competitive. I see less dead weight than I have ever seen.

Even at my kid's private, all the new teachers are introducing themselves as having graduated with 3.9 or 4.0 GPA.

I'm a lawyer - it's getting much worse and i don't see any recovery in sight.

I was with SRA International, so it is worse. We had 7000+ employees in 2009 and now we are down To 5600. (I'm one of those 1400 lost jobs.)

I agree with those who say it's worse here than elsewhere. My friends and relatives in NY have noticed the job market opening up in a variety of fields - law, insurance, education. I have been looking here for six months and have only managed to get one phone interview for a job for which I was completely overqualified. I took a $15,000 paycut when we moved here in 2010, and despite a promotion I still am nowhere close to making up the salary difference three years later. I'm grateful to have a job but it's not really what I want to be doing nor what I went to grad school for and with each month that passes I feel my opportunity to get back into my chosen field slowly slipping away and I become more and more resigned to staying at my current job.

Worse, definitely worse, particularly in this area. Lots of people hung onto their jobs during the recession, few openings, tons of applicants for each. Professional jobs are few and far between in most areas, except some highly technical fields. I know lots of people out of work in PR/Communications. The field has just dried up. Some are doing temp work, even working in retail to make ends meet. These are professionals with graduate degrees and years of experience. Out in the cold and no way back in. There are a few openings now, instead of massive layoffs, but that doesn't help people who have been out of work or underemployed for years. The Great Recession is definitely not over, not by a long shot.

Getting better, but way more voluntary job seekers, so competition still high. Employers still very picky and slow--at my own company, hiring managers have been so picky and slow that they have lost out on first, second, and even third choice candidates.

OP - where are your family members located? I strongly believe it isn't getting better and may even be getting worse in DC. But then I look at people who want to (and are able to) relocate away from here for jobs and it seems like their searches are going "better." I have more than 1 atty friend who got solid in-house jobs in the bay area in just 6 months (and they are not IP/tech attys) -- then you look at attys here who have been trying for those jobs for years and still aren't landing them and their credentials are almost identical.

The gov't controls so much of the market here that when gov't hiring slows or stops, it affects the private sector -- usually I feel like private sector spots here open up in every industry when gov't hiring is robust because people tend to want to get into the fed gov't for the security/pensions etc. thus vacating private jobs. It seems to me that the gov't is really slow/almost frozen still.

Also national unemployment rates getting better aren't just about the professional jobs that those on dcum are trying for -- there is more hiring in manufacturing, retail etc. which is great for the country but doesn't affect those who are trying to break into biglaw or a similar professional role.