The difference now is that the amount of jobs available has been reduced so much that a good proportion of people just can't find a job. Even if you would fill all the jobs available currently, it would not be enough to employ everyone. So yeah, if you watch some TV, they are basically going to say that the lazy are unemployed but that's just not the reality. How we solve this problem and going forward is another thing.
I don't think the data agrees with "the amount of jobs available has been reduced so much that a good proportion of people just can't find a job". Unemployment now is not significantly higher than it has been over the last 70 years:
I would argue the prime age employment to population ratio is probably a better proxy for the job market. In addition wage growth has been very stagnant recently. I think these two data points show that we've haven't fixed out employment problem yet, and there isn't enough jobs to employ another several million truck drivers.
