Prime-age workers are flooding back into the workforce. Older workers are staying home

[progree]

Adriana Belmonte·Senior Distribution Editor, Yahoo Finance, 5/12/23

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/prime-age-workers-are-flooding-back-into-the-workforce-older-workers-are-staying-home-131339316.html

LFPR = Labor Force Participation rates

The graphs are fascinating so I'm listing them. What is below the "GRAPH" line in each case is Progree's impression of what's most interesting about the graph.

Always remember that for plain ol' LFPR, that is age 16 to infinity, yes including centenarians, and are affected by the general aging of the workforce, the rapidly increasing average age of the senior component of the population, and of course boomer retirements. The age 55+ is also increasingly average older age too.

GRAPH: LFPR of 25-54 years old aka Prime Age, and age 55+ (1/2018 onward) .
Age 25-54 is at 83.3%, equal to the pre-pandemic high of January 2020 and the highest rate since September 2008

GRAPH: Job Openings and Hires. (9/2016 onward)
Job openings have fallen to lowest since April '21. But this is still way up from what preceded April 2021

GRAPH: LFPR of: Hispanics/Latinos, Blacks, Whites (1/2019 onward).
Hispanics/Latinos are about 5 percentage points higher than whites, Blacks about 2 percentage points higher than whites in a recent upsurge. Remember the labor force participation rate is the percentage of the age 16+ population (in this graph) that is employed or is actively seeking work (more than just looking at job listings is required to be included in this). Something to keep in mind when some redneck says "them uhh multicultural types are lazy and don't want to work nowadays".

GRAPH: LFPR (1/1971 onward)

Also included is a lot of blah blah about the factors that may be depressing older people's LFPR and holding some back of all ages (compared to say the peak decades ago - the prime age peak was around 2000). I won't attempt to summarize all that or excerpt-icize all that.

Here's a dump of many LFPR data series

The LFPR is the Employed + jobless people who have looked for work in the last 4 weeks (and say they want a job and are able to take one if offered. Looking for work involves more than just looking at job listings). All divided by the civilian non-institutional population age 16+ (in the case of the regular LFPR, or divided by the civilian non-institutional population of whatever age, gender, race etc. for the various sub-demographic measures. For example. the LFPR of age 25-54 females is the number of those employed or actively seeking work divided by the civilian non-institutional population of age 25-54 females.)

SA means Seasonally adjusted. NSA means Not Seasonally Adjusted

LFPR - Labor Force Participation Rate for some age groups
16+: SA: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000 NSA: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNU01300000
16-24: SA: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11324887 NSA: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNU01324887
25-34: SA: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300089 NSA: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNU01300089
25-54: SA: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300060 NSA: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNU01300060
55-64: -------------------- NSA: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNU01300095
55+: SA: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11324230 NSA: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNU01324230
65+: SA: ---------------- NSA: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNU01300097

[] Labor Force Participation Rate (prime age 25-54) by gender
All: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300060
Men: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300061
Women: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300062

[] Labor Force Participation Rate (age 16+) by gender
ALL: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000
Men: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300001
Women: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300002

[] Labor Force Participation Rates, Blacks, Whites,

Black LFPR: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300006
White LFPR: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300003

LFPR age 25-54: LNS11300060 & LNU01300060 There are no SA timeseries available for black and white
Blacks: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNU01300066 (no SA),
Whites: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNU01300063 (no SA),