Covid Shrinks the Labor Market, Pushing Out Women and Baby Boomers

Connecting the Dots – #YesThisIsAnArtsStory Repost from Wall Street Journal

Gwynn Guilford and Sarah Chaney Cambon | 3 December 2020

Since spring lockdowns were lifted, the demand for workers has snapped back faster than many economists expected. Between April and October the unemployment rate fell by more than half, to 6.9%, undoing more than two-thirds of its initial rise.

But unemployment data overstates the health of the labor market because the supply of people either working or looking for a job has declined. The U.S. labor force is 2.2% smaller than in February, a loss of 3.7 million workers.

The labor-force participation rate, or the share of Americans 16 years and over working or seeking work, was 61.7% in October, down from 63.4% in February. Though up from April’s trough, that is near its lowest since the 1970s, when far fewer women were in the workforce.

The supply of workers and their productivity are the building blocks of economic growth. A smaller labor force leaves fewer workers to build machines and clean tables, restraining the economy’s long-term prospects.