US Labor Force Participation Falls to 61.5% as 5.9 Million Worker Decline Looms

3 articles · Updated · Fortune · Jul 9

720,000 people left the US labor force in June, pushing participation down to 61.5%—the lowest non-pandemic reading since 1976.
Indeed Hiring Lab argues the drop reflects labor supply, not collapsing demand, as baby boomer retirements and tighter immigration shrink the pool of available workers.
Its May report projects the labor force will contract 3.7%, or 5.9 million workers, between 2025 and 2032, with unemployment potentially rising by 0.5 to 3.5 points by 2040.
Foreign-born workers help offset that squeeze: their participation rate is 66.3% versus 61.6% for native-born workers, and 70.1% are prime-age compared with 62.7% of natives.
AI may deepen the mismatch by hitting younger white-collar sectors first while aging fields such as health care, education and construction still struggle to attract enough workers.