Hopefully I'm not being snarky here, but if you looked at another country with a smaller economy, and then saw that they employee fewer people, would you be equally confused?
Only if you then proceeded to tell me that because less people are employed the country has a lower standard of living and is more economically unstable. As a direct example of this, Sweden's unemployment rate is 7.6% right now[0], and it's historically been quite a bit higher than the US's. But people say that it ranks #1 in terms of quality of life[1]. Additionally, their unemployment rate is not negatively effecting their growth[2].
So in answer to your question, yes it continues to confuse me when people try to equate employment numbers with the overall economic status of a country. You don't take any number in isolation, you look at the data holistically, and sometimes you have numbers that seem to be at odds with one another. When that happens, it requires a deeper investigation to see what's truly happening instead of taking the number you like better and using that to promote your narrative.
