The question now: Will the victory be short-lived as those same policymakers battle inflation by engineering an economic slowdown aimed at undercutting conditions that have been tilted heavily in favor of workers?
But the number of unemployed and the unemployment rate both increased, the jobless rate for Black workers rose nearly a full percentage point, and wage growth slowed, potential signs that the conditions which fueled "the Great Resignation" and a spike in wages for lower-paid jobs may be turning.
occurred in the three years from 2016 to 2019, when just over 5% of the workforce reallocated to a new occupation, than did so in the pandemic-influenced period from 2019 to 2022, when about 3.3% of the workforce crossed occupational lines.
The participation rate for 25-to-54 year olds, a measure of workforce engagement that sidesteps the issues of population aging, regained its pre-pandemic level of 83.1% in February and by May had risen to 83.4%.