The United States predicted long-term unemployment despite hundreds of thousands of new jobs and record vacancies. This is the best result in almost a year, but even at this rate employment will not catch up with the pre-pandemic level by early 2022.

Before the pandemic, wealthy countries experienced an incredible employment boom. In 2019, the proportion of people over 15 working or looking for work was higher than at any time since the late 1990s, even despite the fact that the population is aging at an accelerating rate. Working-age employment (16 to 64) was at an all-time high in most of the rich countries. The US unemployment rate was 4.22 percent in 1999 and 3.67 percent in 2020. In the European Union, this figure was 12 percent in 1999, then 6.6 percent in 2020. At the moment, employment in rich countries is on average three percent below the pre-pandemic maximum, that is, 18 million people are unemployed now.