Many economists predict the report will say that November's jobless rate held steady at 9.6%, making it the 19th consecutive month that the unemployment rate was above 9%. That breaks the post-World War II record set in the 1980s recession.

The dubious milestone shows that even if job growth picks up as expected in coming months, progress will be slow, and it will take years to put a big dent in the unemployment rate.

The current streak of above-9% unemployment is certain to far surpass the previous record. The Federal Reserve recently forecast that the jobless rate will still be hovering around 9% at the end of 2011 and will fall slowly to about 8% by the end of 2012.

The chronic level of high unemployment shows that many Americans are still suffering, even though the National Bureau of Economic Research has said the recession officially ended in June 2009. The economy lost more than 8 million jobs in the downturn.

"To anyone around the dinner table, it means little," says Lawrence Mishel, president of the liberal Economic Policy Institute. "The fact is, unemployment is going to remain flat for a year."

The picture is brightening in some ways. The closely watched ADP National Employment Report Wednesday said private employers in November added the most jobs in three years.

Most of the gains were by beleaguered small businesses, which added 54,000 jobs. Small firms have lagged in the recovery because, unlike large ones, they've struggled to get credit and haven't benefited from surging exports.

"The fact that the pessimistic forecasts for the second half (of 2010) aren't materializing is probably giving (businesses) confidence that the recovery does have legs," says economist Conrad DeQuadros of RDQ Economics.

DeQuadros cited a survey of economists predicting private employers added 145,000 jobs last month. DeQuadros, noting Wednesday's ADP report and falling jobless claims recently, believes job gains totaled 200,000 last month and could approach that level regularly in the first half of 2011.

Private-sector gains have averaged 112,000 a month this year.

Others are less bullish. Sung Won Sohn, an economist at California State University, says employers will add about 165,000 jobs a month the first half of next year.

Many economists estimate that employers must add as many as 200,000 jobs monthly to bring down the jobless rate, because millions of discouraged workers who stopped looking for jobs will re-enter the labor force as prospects improve.

Other reports Wednesday were mixed. Manufacturing activity continued to expand last month, though at a slightly slower rate than in October. And employers announced plans to cut payrolls by 48,711 in November, according to outplacement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas.

That's an eight-month high, though the firm blamed big cuts by state and local governments and non-profits. Government layoffs could weigh on the job market well into next year.