Government forcing people out of their jobs and then allowing them to come back into the work force is not job growth in the sense of anything meaningful. So no it probably hasn't been seen before, but it's irrelevant, if I took your 10 dollars today and gave you back 8 dollars next week, your bank account isn't growing unless you only look at this weeks balance and choose to ignore the extremely recent past.
That doesn't make sense since employment is near capacity right now and the worker shortage is still very real. Mind you this is now long after all the covid benefits have dried up.
Employment is higher than it was before Covid and unemployment is down at around the same level. To put it in terms of your metaphor, the bank has given you back $10.10 or so for your $10.
But when you give back the $8, you just need to tell them that "bank account growth" only matters week to week. Boom, they're now $8 richer thanks to you!