the bureau of labor statistics, job openings and labor turnover survey. it shows that in february of 2009 the height of the recession, 4 million people were hired, the same number as just two months ago in march of 2011, but it also shows there are 4.7 million job losses if february of 2009. by contrast, two months ago, there were far fewer, just 3.8 million people lost their jobs, the reason is simple, think about what you do when you're an employer. if things, if business is starting to turn bad, you start laying people off. when you've laid everybody off and you're at the bottom of the economy you don't layoff anybo anybody-- layoff anybody anymore and they're already gone and that's the situation we're in right now. >> reporter: the white house defended the jobs record and lazier was the chair of president bush's council of economic advisors at a time when 4 million jobs were lost. >> we've had now 14 months of net job creation, private