Figure 1 traces the United States' annual total employment for the period 1969-2021 to illustrate total employment patterns over time. During this 53-year period, the United States' total employment rose from 91,053,200 in 1969 to 201,142,600 in 2021, for a net gain of 110,089,400, or 120.9%.

Figure 2 shows the United States' total employment growth in a broader context by offering direct comparisons across time with . The growth indices shown here express each region's total employment in 1969 as a base figure of 100, and the total employments in later years as a percentage of the 1969 base figure.

The United States' overall total employment growth was 120.9% over 1969-2021 .

Figure 3 highlights the short-run pattern of the United States' total employment growth by tracking the year-to-year percent change over 1970-2021. The average annual percent change for the entire 52-year period is also traced on this chart to provide a benchmark for gauging periods of relative high--and relative low--growth against the backdrop of the long-term average.

On average, the United States' total employment grew at an annual rate of 1.55% over 1970-2021. The United States recorded its highest growth in 1978 (4.42%) and recorded its lowest growth in 2020 (-3.15%). In 2021, the United States' total employment grew by 2.99%

Over the past six decades some countries have experienced extreme swings in growth, and often such swings have tended to coincide with the decades themselves. Figure 4 again illustrates the annual percent change in the United States' total employment since 1970, but this time they are overlayed with average growth rates for the decade of the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and 2020-2021.

During the 1970s, the United States' annual total employment growth rate averaged 2.21%. It averaged 1.88% in the 1980s, 1.73% throughout the 1990s, 0.74% in the 2000s, 1.51% throughout the 2010s, -0.08% thus far this decade (2020-2021).

The job ratios shown in Figure 5 for the United States and the nation not only portray a number of important trends, they also serves as a thumbnail guide to evaluating an economy's capacity to generate enough jobs fast enough to absorb the increasing number of workers attendant to a growing population. The job ratio is the number of full-time and part-time jobs by place of work, divided by population.

Nationally, the job ratio rose from 0.45 to 0.61 between 1969 and 2021. the United States' job ratio registered 0.45 in 1969, and 0.61 in 2021. Underlying the rising job ratio over the past several decades have been the increases in the labor force participation rates, with the number and proportion of women in the labor market playing a leading role.

An assortment of other factors can contribute to regional differences in the job ratio. They include differences in the proportion of elderly and retirees who no longer work and participate in the labor force, differences in the number and proportion of part-time vs. full-time workers, differences in industry composition, and differences in age and sex distribution and degree of urbanization. Also, a disproportionate number of workers commuting to work outside a state tends to lower its local state job ratio, while a net inflow of workers commuting to work inside the state tends to augment its local state job ratio.

Avoid interpreting the job ratio as the fraction (or percent) of the local population employed. This interpretation should only apply to the "employment-population ratio" statistic compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) from the Current Population Survey (CPS).