The unemployment rate in February remained unchanged, but don’t let that seemingly boring news lull you to sleep. The American work force rose by 555,000 people in February, The New York Times reports. Combined with January and December, this brings the total number of people who returned to the work force to 1.52 million, the highest number in the past 16 years.
After the 2008 recession, the number of Americans in the work force plummeted, but it appears the ship is starting to right itself. The proportion of the adult population in the labor force and the proportion of the population with a job both increased 0.5 percent since September.
Finally, after seven years straight of job growth, it seems as though many people who became disenchanted with working after the 2008 recession, are starting to venture back into the work force.
However, there are some major questions left to answer in 2016. It is great that more people are returning to work in the first few months of this year, but for the next few months the question becomes how long it will continue without a simultaneous increase in wages.
