Three out of four new hires in the US over the last few months were not actively looking for jobs before they were employed, according to figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics: this is a three-decade high that indicates an increasing number of Americans are joining the workforce. In January, for example, 4.8 million people who were not actively searching became employed anyway, outnumbering those who dropped out of the workforce.

The bureau’s figures show that workforce participation has been rising steadily for the last five years, which may explain why talent shortages in the country are so high and unemployment so low despite weak job growth and generally downbeat economic forecasts for the last year or so. For instance, survey results released last month by ManpowerGroup indicated that 69 percent of US employers cannot find the people they want, well above the global average of 54 percent; comparing this number to historical data, the skills shortage is over three times more acute than it was a decade ago. Meanwhile, US unemployment rates have remained at 3.6 percent, a 50-year low.

"As job growth is outpacing the rate of population growth, folks are increasingly coming off the sidelines, and going directly into employment," said Indeed.com economist Nick Bunker. "We could see continued strong job gains for quite some time."

The industries that saw the most jobs added include construction, healthcare, hospitality, logistics, and professional and business services. However, manufacturing, specifically automobile manufacturing, actually saw jobs lost, which may continue the trend from 2019 that saw automakers closing factories and cutting thousands of jobs under pressure from the Sino-US trade war and changing industry conditions.