The economy needs to add 6.6 million jobs in order to bring the labor market back to pre-recession levels, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the country created a net 103,000 payrolls in September, above expectations but still well below what's needed on a monthly basis to really get recovery back on track.

Furthermore, adding 6.6 million jobs only brings the jobs market out of the hole and not into real growth mode, meaning that figure doesn't account for population growth.

(Getty Images photo)

"The addition of the 6.6 million jobs only accounts for the jobs that were lost, it does nothing to expand the labor market for the nearly 100,000 new entrants who join the ranks of the labor force every month," the Journal adds.

Other experts agree that the unemployment rate, which remains stuck at 9.1 percent, won't budge for a while.

"This is not the kind of job growth that brings unemployment down," James Glassman, senior economist at JP Morgan Chase in New York, tells Bloomberg.

Many economists are worried that the jobs market won't recover in time for the next recession, which could strike the U.S. thanks to the scares European debt woes are having on the world.

Others say the U.S. economy will avoid dipping back into recession but will remain in a sluggish growth mode for some time, meaning now is about as good as it gets.

"It’s steady growth at a painfully slow pace," says Michael Englund, chief economist at Action Economics in Boulder, Colorado, Bloomberg reports.

"The economy isn’t doing well, but it didn't lose the momentum that the markets feared."