BY MICHAEL CRUMB: We’ve heard a lot of the ongoing workforce shortage over the past couple of years, and this story from the Wall Street Journal takes a look at those people who are in their early 20s, and why there is still a significant number of them who are not working. The labor participation rate for people ages 20 to 24 was 70.8% in October, down from 72.1% in 2019. That’s still higher than the country as a whole, which had a labor participation rate of 62.2% in October, down from 63.1% before the pandemic. The number of Gen Zers not working equals a shortfall of about 500,000 compared to 2019 workforce levels. The question is why? They aren’t retiring early, as is the case for people 55 and older, and unlike what happened in the 2007-2008 recession when the labor market was weak, they aren’t enrolling in school.