The country might be in for a long climb back to pre-recession employment numbers.

It will take the United States four years to recover all the jobs lost during the recession, economists at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York told Bloomberg.com.

JPMorgan projected that the economy will expand at an average 3.5 percent pace in the second half of 2009, and will grow 3.2 percent in 2010. JPMorgan’s projections are more optimistic than a Bloomberg survey of economists that projected nearly a percentage point lower pace for the rest of 2009 and 2.4 percent growth for in 2010.

At least it’s growth, but JPMorgan used history to squelch some optimism. The company said its projections would be a disappointing outcome in comparison to the above 5 percent growth the economy showed as the country came out of the three deepest recessions since World War II.

In September, 263,000 jobs were cut, raising the nation’s unemployment level to a 26-year high of 9.8 percent, with more bad news potentially on the way. According to one estimate, the U.S. economy has lost 824,000 more jobs since December 2007 than the 7.2 million currently on the books, bringing total job losses to 8 million.

With unemployment numbers like that and a 3.5 percent growth rate, JPMorgan predicted that the job losses of the past year won’t be reversed until 2013.

Regardless, JPMorgan’s chief economist and its director of global economic coordination said that if the company’s projections are right, there should be “solid outcomes” that show that the “recovery path may be bumpy but remains intact.”