Gary Becker summarizes the reasons for the slow job recovery into three categories:

1. The aftermath of a big financial crisis, as explained by the research done by Reinhart and Rogoff;

2. Policy and regulation uncertainties hinder investment, although Corporate America are flooded with cash;

3. Relatively more generous unemployment benefits offer no immediate incentives for job seeking, keeping a non-negligible proportion of population out of labor force.

(graph courtesy of Calculated Risk)