The Labor Participation Rate is not used as much as the unemployment rate. The unemployment rate is just the percentage of people filing for unemployment compensation. If they have been unemployed too long they get dropped out of the count. The Labor Participation Rate is the number of those working who have jobs divided by the number of working age adults. It is far more accurate of a picture of what is really happening. The grey ares are recessions. It shows employment under Bush was far better than anything after Obama was elected. It started to recover under Trump but then COVID-19 and Joe Biden happened. This chart come from the Federal Governments own Bureau of Labor Statistics.
