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by time_to_smile 1324 days ago
Full employment of a smaller labor force, you need to look at the labor force participation rate [0] to get the whole picture.

Yes unemployment is at near record lows, but the percent of the population in the work force is the lower than its been since the 1970s.

0. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART

1 comments

> Full employment of a smaller labor force,

the civilian labor force is higher than ever. as of Sept 2022, 153M non-farm workers [1], 130M private employees [2].

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PAYEMS

[2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USPRIV

I feel like I shouldn't have to explain the idea of participation rate but what you've posted is the numerator, you need to divide it by total working age population to get the rate.
you said "Full employment of a smaller labor force". its not a smaller labor force. its a larger labor force as the number of employees is at an all-time high.