Will the rich world’s worker deficit last?

AMERICA’S LATEST jobs report was both encouraging and sobering. The world’s largest economy added 943,000 jobs in July. That is the best tally in nearly a year—but even at this pace employment with its pre-crisis level until early 2022, six months after output regained its peak. Jobs in the rest of the rich world, too, are likely to take a while to return to pre-pandemic highs. Demand for workers is still lower than it was before covid-19 struck; and, more important, people have withdrawn from the world of work.Before the pandemic the rich world enjoyed an extraordinary . In 2019 a higher share of people over the age of 15 was in the labour force—ie, either in work or looking for it—than at any point since at least 1990. The working-age employment rate (the share of 16- to 64-year-olds in a job) was at an all-time high in over half of rich countries.