The bad news is that participation rate in the labor force has continued on a downward trend even as the economy rebounds.
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000
I think a growing economy that does not create jobs should concern us all.
If population growth continues to outpace job growth, we're going to end up with a nasty game of economic musical chairs.
From 2010 to 2020, the civilian labor force aged 16 to 55, prime working years, is actually going to shrink by almost a million people. So the population is growing, but more of those people are of ages where it is typical to not work, so labor force participation rate can naturally be expected to go down, even if nothing is wrong with the economy.
It is true that this number is affected by people retiring, newborns, immigrants but it basically shows how many (or few) that are producing the goods and services consumed by the whole population.
The unemployment number is heavy politized and it is always easier for politicians to hire economists to design measurements that shows a lower unemployment than it is for politicians to actually implement measures that increase meaningful and sustainable employment.
I think that the (western) world is in a development that will leave us with much lower employment for good. And this is due to the forces for globalization (such as outsourcing of jobs and manufacturing, global competition) and advances in technology (robots, information technology removing middle men and backoffice functions). Much more so than ageing or immigration.
It is important that this becomes a bigger issue in public discourse otherwise we risk ending in bad place with too many people living of welfare and highly skewed wealth and income distribution.