The robust job gains have resulted in an acutely tight labor market. Almost uniformly across the nation, demographic groups, industries, and occupations, labor is fully employed. Those who are unemployed are increasingly people who have quit their jobs as they search for another and new and re-entrants into the workforce. Moreover, those who are employed are increasingly working in job arrangements that are best suited to their lifestyles. Nowhere are the limits of the economy more evident than in the nation's labor market .
Businesses increasingly point to a lack of available labor as their principal constraint on growth.
With nearly everyone who wants a job working, the economy's growth is increasingly tied to the growth in the number of people entering the workforce. Given the current record participation of the population at work, the economy's growth will ultimately be tied to the growth in the working age population. The population is expanding at a rate that is approximately one-half the current rate of job growth. If the growth in labor productivity accelerates to offset the weakening growth in the labor force and thus employment, the economy's growth does not necessarily have to slow from its current pace. But underlying productivity trends change only slowly, and a weakening in job growth will take place over the next year.