I now remember what metric I was thinking of… participation rate. There was a charter data storytelling post about it a while ago that I’m not able to find. But apparently participation rate on the workforce are down. I don’t remember what time scale. But I believe that metric includes discouraged workers as well as people who have retired. But I believe the angle the article I read was talking was a post pandemic look… like lots of people retired early. I believe this has those numbers.. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm

Here’s a chart: https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-lab...

I think this metric, like unemployment, is obviously nuanced and also could be showing an aging demographic and other such subtleties.