CIVPARTLabor Force Participation Rate — Current Value & Historical Data
Gray bands: NBER recessions
What is Labor Force Participation Rate?
The labor force participation rate is the share of the U.S. civilian noninstitutional population aged 16 and older that is either employed or actively looking for work, published monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It is the denominator behind the unemployment rate — a falling participation rate can lower the unemployment rate without any real gain in employment, because people who stop searching are no longer counted as unemployed. The headline rate peaked at 67.3% in early 2000 as women's labor-force entry peaked, and has since drifted lower to the 62–63% range, driven largely by the aging of the baby-boom generation out of working life. Prime-age participation (ages 25 to 54) strips out the demographic effect and has fully recovered its pre-pandemic high above 83%, indicating a structurally tight working-age labor market.
Current Labor Force Participation Rate Value
As of April 1, 2026, the current labor force participation rate is 61.80 Percent. This is the most recent observation available for this series, updated monthly.
Historical Trend
Labor Force Participation Rate fell 0.16% month-over-month. Over the past year, labor force participation rate fell 1.12% from March 2025. In the series' tracked history, the highest recorded value was 67.30 (January 2000), and the lowest was 58.10 (December 1954).
Methodology & Source
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
Frequency: Monthly
Units: Percent
The series comes from the 'Current Population Survey (Household Survey)' The source code is: LNS11300000 The Labor Force Participation Rate is defined by the Current Population Survey (CPS) as “the number of people in the labor force as a percentage of the civilian noninstitutional population […...