Working Age Employment Levels Still Below 1999 Levels.

Dismal Employment Outlook for Ages 25 to 54

Written by Steve Kritzer 
Updated October 16th 2016

Subjects: employment, unemployment, working age, labor statistic
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Employment levels

Employment levels for this age group (25 to 54) are still below the levels attained in 1999 (-586,000).

Population

Lower employment can't be attributed to baby-boomer retirement, this population has grown by about 5.5 million.

Employment to population ratio

The drop in the employment to population ratio, is about 4%.

Unemployment rate

Somehow, with negative job growth, we have arrived at a similar unemployment rate (3.1%  in 1999 vs 4.0% in June 2016).

Labor force with Employment levels

The labor force is the combination of the employed plus the unemployed.

In the chart below, the delta between the two charted lines is the number of working age unemployed. In December of 2007, the labor force was 104,694,000, in June of 2016, the labor force is 102,025,000. The population has largely recovered since December 2007,  but 2.7 million persons have left the labor force.