Lowest Labor Participation Rate of 69.74% since 1977

Lowest Labor Participation Rate of 69.74% since 1977

As a student of Economics, I have a basic grasp of how it should work. I try to keep up as much with macro economics as I can because it fundamentally affects my business. Job creation is directly correlated to the increase in demand for office space. There's no arguing that!

So when I see news like we got today that impacts the real unemployment numbers I get alarmed for two reasons.

  1. There's the social impact, nothing worse than good people who can't find sustainable employment. Hence, the more job opportunities there are, the happier people are.
  2. Then there's the economic perspective. The more money Americans are able to earn the more they can buy hence it spurs more demand for goods and services.

Unfortunately, we are seeing a sign in the real unemployment numbers that should alarm and worry us. I'm referring to the long term unemployment numbers and/or the Labor Participation Rate. The graph above shows that this rate has not been this low since 1977.  I will concede that we are still in the midst of a major structural shift from the industrial era to the digital era and our economy is going through this major transformation, so some of the fallout has been an abundance of lay offs over the last 25 years. However, we need to combat this and this requires our politicians to focus on doing whatever they can, collectively, to foster growth and stability. We currently have neither, and for as long as this continues we will see the LPR decline further.

Furthermore, I want to point out that a record 56,167,000 women which translates to 56.60% of women were no longer in the labor force.  What is seriously alarming in this most recent report for April is that 36,000 women have dropped out of the labor force since March, that is in one month!  

See Bureau of Labor Statistics: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm).

My source for the graph: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-08/americans-not-labor-force-rise-record-93194000

Gabe Schick

Guiding & Aligning Business Operators With Property & Liability Protection

6 年

Hi Chris, I would love to hear an update to this article from you. We're almost 3 years beyond the date you published it. I'm wondering what your current insights are on the same subject. Thanks!

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dave cantera

Business Broker Realtor

6 年

From where I stand, I agree 110% with your analysis and solution, I wonder how much of the baby boomers impact the LPR as per determining the age of those who are expected to be in the workforce, some have retired n some while over 66yo are working full-time or 2-3 jobs part-time. I don't see a shortage of people wanting to work, I see a shortage of things to do that people can actually do. No one is about to create jobs for the unemployed. For example, senior engineers could head up a team of recent grads n go out n survey infrastructure project mentoring them along the way but no one is even suggesting it let alone implementing it...

dave cantera

Business Broker Realtor

9 年

not at all unexpected, yes someone should do something about this but who, govt n big biz are killing us, a slow and painful death, reducing the US to a third world country

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Vic Crain

Insurance: Life, Health, Medicare, Group Health for SMEs Consulting: Market Analysis

9 年

The data is actually worse than the graph suggests. We have an entire category of people -- a large one -- who are working part time or who have traded higher paying jobs for lower paying ones. Yes, they are employed, but not at a level that supports their expenses, much less investment. That's why the mass market retail economy remains in the doldrums. One of the things to consider is that as people downsize housing to fit what they can afford, many will not have space for home offices. This presents opportunity for micro offices. I agree with the other comments regarding your office space. Excellent. Have you considered focus group facilities as another possible extension to your product line?

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