Labor force participation may have been falling due to the retirement of an aging population. That's not good news -- that's more people for the working to carry. In any event it may have plateaued, with women fully intergrated into the labor force.

But let's get back to the title of your post.

The flood of women and the baby boom generation into the labor force led to high unemployment. Back then, a 6.0% unemployment rate was thought of as good.

Those at the back end of the baby boom, like me, found all the jobs taken and all the housing bought. I still end up working for the 60s generation everywhere I go.

With the smaller Gen X reaching working age, there was less competition for entry level jobs, and unemployment fell. We would have had a massive labor shortage -- across all skill levels -- were it not for immigration.

Now Gen Y -- the large group of children of the baby boomers or the "baby boom echo" is flooding into the labor force. And passing on the curse, my kids will be at the back end of it. Since the 60s generation had kids later than the 70s generation, there is a much sharper peak hitting 18/19 this year -- in a recession.

The teens came into the labor force and did not get jobs. Unemployment can go up a long way.

On the job loss side, the number of employed residents of a area (measued by the household survey) has been moving much faster and farther (up and then down) than the number of wage and salary employees. This is because more and more young people (and immigrants) have been hired as self-employed independent contractors or "freelancers" -- without health insurance. Evidently, the non-employees are the first to be "fired."