EXPLAINER: Workers return and 4 other jobs-report charts

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER
AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Solid hiring, strong wage gains and sharp price increases are drawing more Americans into the workforce. The trend, if sustained, would mean some long-awaited relief for businesses that have been desperate to fill jobs. The number of people either working or looking for work still hasn’t fully recovered from a mass exodus from the workforce that followed the eruption of COVID-19. But Friday’s jobs report showed that it is clearly heading in that direction. A sustained increase in people seeking jobs might eventually cool the sizzling wage gains of the past year, ease concerns at the Federal Reserve about rampaging inflation and possibly even usher the economy onto a more sustainable growth path.