Here is a link to an enlightening post by the Economic Policy Institute with charts that clearly illustrate the employment issues:

http://www.epi.org/publication...1-economy/

Long-term trends in employment/population ratio have to be taken into account. It appears that even if there were full employment the ratio would be decreasing because of flattening of the rate of entry of women and baby-boomer retirement among other things.

There's also the fact that a lot of young people, especially young women, are going to colleges and grad school when they can't find good jobs. Not sure that borrowing a lot for a humanities or a communications degree is worth it, but they're doing it.

If I had really desired to increase my leisure time, I would have insisted to my boss that he keep me around.