W hat's the current state of the labor market? If you look at the most widely reported employment indicators, it may appear that there's a good deal of slack: Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by a lower-than-expected 269,000 jobs in April and 583,000 in May, and the total number of employed workers remains more than 6.7 million below its February 2020 peak. But the economy recorded a record-high 9.2 million job openings in May 2021, which aligns with widespread anecdotal reports from

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... ss owners who are struggling to meet staffing needs-signs of a tight labor market. Here's the challenge in trying to parse out the exact state of the labor market: Jobs are returning, 1 but the pandemic has accelerated longtime trends by knocking millions of people out of the labor force. Some of these exits were retirements, but many were prime-age workers previously employed in industries heavily affected by the pandemic.