We're not in great shape, employment wise.
Retirement/aging explains the largest component of the drop.
Much of the drop was predicted decades ago by Census based solely on demographics. The single largest factor in the current drop is exactly demographics. Here [1,2,3] are FRED papers on the topic with more references.
[1] https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2017/january/disse... [2] https://files.stlouisfed.org/files/htdocs/publications/revie...
[3] https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/o...
Almost everyone who wants a job has one. And real wages have been rising for a decade. That’s pretty good shape.
Labour force participation is a complicated question deeply intertwined with the opioid crisis, increased rates of college attendance, the mis-use of federal disability insurance and other factors. Quoting labour participation without reference to demographic shifts creating more retirees, moreover, mischaracterises the statistic. Demographically, there is no world in which 2018 LFP would have been higher than 2008.
I was responding to a claim that the government should have focussed on "creating jobs". In that context, the employment-unemployment line seemed most significant.
Real wages have been rising for a decade, so the central tendency for employed persons is better than it used to be (or than it was pre-crisis). There is still unemployment, particularly among the undereducated [1]. But from an average worker's perspective, it's one of the best economies we've seen in years.
From the worker's perspective, what you get paid is only half the story.