Until Eve’s encounter with the serpent, Adam did not spend a lot of time looking for work. Didn’t have to. Expelled from Eden and cursed with the necessity of earning his bread “in the sweat of his face,” he found work. Had to. Therein lies a partial, but only partial, explanation for one of the strange developments in America’s labor markets.

Since the recession ended, the American economy has added 8.8 million jobs, bringing total employment back to where it was when the recession started. The unemployment rate has plunged from 10 percent at its peak in October 2009 to 6.3 percent. That sounds more encouraging than it actually is: many workers have been forced to accept part-time work, and the decline in the unemployment rate is due in good part to a mass exodus from the labor force, driving the so-called labor force participation rate to near-record low levels, with about one-third of the decline due to withdrawal from the market by discouraged job seekers.