Article Image

IPFS News Link • Employment & Jobs

Labor Participation Rate Drops To Lowest Since 1978; ...

• Prison Planet

It is almost as if the Fed warned us this would happen. In a note released yesterday, a Fed working paper titled "Labor Force Participation: Recent Developments and Future Prospects", looked at the US labor force and concluded that "while we see some of the current low level of the participation rate as indicative of labor market slack, we do not expect the participation rate to show a substantial increase from current levels as labor market conditions continue to improve." But don't blame it on the greatest recession/depression since 1929: "our overall assessment is that much ? but not all ? of the decline in the labor force participation rate since 2007 is structural in nature."

Well that's very odd, because it was only two months ago that the Census wrote the following: "Many older workers managed to stay employed during the recession; in fact, the population in age groups 65 and over were the only ones not to see a decline in the employment share from 2005 to 2010 (Figure 3-25)? Remaining employed and delaying retirement was one way of lessening the impact of the stock market decline and subsequent loss in retirement savings."