Date: 2024-12-21 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00021439
US EMPLOYMENT
LABOR PARTICIPATION RATE
Understanding the changes in the US Labor Force Participation Rate for the past 40 years
LABOR PARTICIPATION RATE
Understanding the changes in the US Labor Force Participation Rate for the past 40 years
Burgess COMMENTARY
Before around 1966, the US Labor Force Participation Rate (that is the Percentage of the Working Age Population Employed) was around 69%.
As more and more women entered the labor force, this indicator grew and eventually peaked in the 1990s at around 67%. Dring the 1980s and the 1990s the US had a strong economy compared to the 1970s driven by consumer demand, but a weakening economy based on high wage industrial jobs many of which were outsourced to low wage locations.
After the dot.com bubble, this indicator declined from 2000 to 2015 to around 63%. Much of the US industrial heartland had lost good paying jobs leaving more and more of low-paid service jobs.
This indicator went into free fall with the COVID pandemic, but recovered considerably during the second year of the pandemic.
Peter Burgess