A moment ago, I said the job is not finished. Some gaps remain. Employment progress, for instance, may be less than meets the eye. Many of us have held that the conventional measure of unemployment probably overstates actual progress. There are still almost 7 million workers counted as employed who say they are working part-time  2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  involuntarily.
As a point of reference, 7 million is about 4 1/2 percent of a labor force of 157 million. There are always people in this involuntary part-time category, but the number is still elevated compared to historical levels. Over the last few years, there has been a worrisome outflow of prime-age workers – especially men – from the labor force.