Search content of parent folder AND sub-folders using Finder

I recently received a new laptop for work running Ventura 13.2.1. My previous laptop was from 2019 (duly updated, but still: not as new).

In order to quickly locate information necessary to do my job, I routinely search folders and sub-folders using Finder. Often I have mere minutes to perform these searches and locate the requested information.

On my old laptop, this was no problem, as I could open up a folder in Finder and quickly search the content of that folder AND all its sub-folders using the search bar at top right. On my new laptop, the search only returns hits from the folder I have open, NOT its sub-folders. This is a huge problem for me.

How can I re-set my search parameters to mirror the functionality I had before? (NOTE: Setting the search to "This Mac" is not useful, as it often returns hundreds of hits, making the whole search function and my carefully constructed system of folders and sub-folders completely irrelevant.)

Thanks, all!