In the time since the end of the article's data was sourced, until now, the U6 rate has fallen from 11% to 8.3% - which is back to where it was in the Summer of 1998. When it gets into the 7.x% levels, the employment market will be the second hottest in roughly 50 years next to the year 2000.

The time frame sourced, includes an U6 rate that reached nearly 18% and a U3 rate that hit 10%. It's not surprising that conventional full-time work numbers would be severely distorted both by the great recession and the recovery period.

The actual labor force reality is the US is facing a severe shortage of labor due to extremely slow population growth (and that assumes a big hit from inbound automation; if that's not as big as forecast, the shortage will be that much worse).

The US added $4.x trillion to its economy in the last ten years (despite the great recession), roughly the size of Germany's economy of 82 million people. It accomplished that while adding only 22 million people. Without a leap in automation, ie productivity gains, there's no way to keep matching that economic expansion in the next 10 and 20 years as population growth slows even further.