Interestingly, the more generous unemployment and social benefits are, the higher the employment rate typically is. The correlation is actually pretty strong. (Note: the table lists employment rate by the OECD measure, ages 15-64, whereas the BLS figure cited in the OP uses ages 16+ including retirees.)

While perhaps paradoxical at first glance, it makes sense if you think about it, since a more inclusive society also makes sure fewer people become detached from society, and more generous benefits also enable a more flexible labour market.

In this sense, the employment rate dropping at the same time the (already mediocre) safety net is being dismantled in the USA is unsurprising. It isn't because of an innate lack of "jobs," but because fewer people are in a position to be able or willing to work jobs.

Exactly, the "kick them while they are down, will help them get up" mentality surprisingly doesn't work.

I can also speak for STEM. if you're not currently in it, you're not getting into it. and if you get out of it, unless you're some kinda rockstar dev that is crucial to some companies survival, you're not getting back into it. At one point you'd be competing against off shored dudes from India, which was easy to over come. Now not only are you competing with them who are now working for less pay than what they were before, you're also competing with the ones that are willing to leave India and work in person for less pay AND AI AND fresh grads willing to work for minimum wage to be a prompt monkey. AI is a primary factor but it's only one of the factors. Competent and qualified people in STEM are going the way of the buffalo. And I'm telling you now we're all collectively fucked as a result. Mark my words data "leaks" like that one from that dating app a year or so ago are going to look like a casual sunday stroll in the park compared to what is eventually coming. they'll be more frequent and be coming from everyone especially various governments.

I'm getting out of it this October and taking an early retirement. I want no part of it.

I can speak for STEM, and AI has erased any possibility of landing a job. Specifically, every part of the job hunt has been tainted by AI:

AI job recruiters and AI-generated job postings use AI to search resumes and applications for key words, but even if you use said key words, your resume may not be picked up unless you use an AI resume builder to generate a resume that the AI job recruiter and application can analyze, then and only then, you just might have a chance at an interview...with an AI interviewer.

I genuinely wish the worst possible deaths on AI corpo shillionaires.

I don't understand the macroeconomics rabbit-hole well enough to know the details, but it seems to me that there is a complex set of mathematical formulae and models economists use to make their analysis, predictions, and recommendations from. Then, from those, there are patterns that emerge from the data that more general "rule of thumb" guidelines are derived from, which enable people without an economic background to watch for those patterns and make their own analysis, predictions, and direct actions without having to fully understand the underlying reasoning; sort of like standing on the shoulders of the experts.

Then, lately, reporting rules have been changed and/or fudged, which has led to a scenario where those familiar patterns no longer necessarily work the same or foretell the same things, causing potentially big miscalculations by the non-economists making pattern-based analysis.

What I still wonder about, though, is whether the actual economists have enough data, knowledge, and modeling to continue to make accurate analysis in this new environment themselves. A follow-up question to that would be, "How long might it take for people that have lost the ability to navigate the new economic landscape to regain that ability, assuming that can that even be done?"