Prospective employers and job seekers interact during a job fair Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2021, in the West Hollywood section of Los Angeles.Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP Photo Despite December's weak job gains, 2021 as a whole was the strongest in US history. The unemployment rate also saw the biggest one-year drop in data going back to 1949. The US labor market is on track to recover three times faster than it did from the Great Recession. The December jobs report might've badly missed expectations, but it still capped an unprecedented year for the US labor market.If 2020 was the year of lockdown, 2021 was the year of reopening.