California’s State capital can finally kiss good-bye to the recession. Data released on Friday shows that an important milestone has been reached: all the jobs lost during the recession have been recovered. Jeff Michael, an economist at the University of the Pacific shed a sigh of relief:

“It’s about time. Sacramento has definitely had a long, slow journey out of this.”

California cities have been slowly coming back to pre-recession employment figures, but Sacramento has had the hardest time. It was the last of the Golden State’s metropolitan areas to get back to where it was before disaster struck.

Sacramento was especially hard hit due to the slow job growth in the public sector, where many citizens find employment. The truth is that Sacramento still has not fully recovered in this sector, still suffering from a net job loss since the Great Recession.

Recovery has come from outside government jobs. In November the region added 5,400 new jobs, totaling 936,900, according to the California Employment Development Department. That number is 3,000 jobs more than the area’s pre-recession high back in June 2007.