A record 94,610,000 Americans 16 or older did not participate in the nation’s labor force in September, while the labor force participation rate dropped to 62.4 percent, a 38-year low, according to data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
The 94,610,000 Americans not in the labor force are those individuals who did not have a job and did not actively seek one in the past four weeks. This measure increased by 579,000 individuals over the month.
The participation rate, the percent of the population who participated in the labor force by either having a job or actively seeking one in the past four weeks, dropped from 62.6 in August to 62.4 percent in September. This metric has not been this low since October 1977, when it was 62.4 percent—a span of 38 years.
The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 5.1 percent in September. This measure does not account for those individuals who have dropped out of the labor force. The unemployment rate measures the percentage of those who did not have a job but actively sought one over the month. The number of unemployed individuals dropped by 114,000 over the month.
For women, the unemployment rate declined while workplace participation declined. A record 56,647,000 women 16 or older did not participate in the nation’s labor force in September, according to the BLS data, an increase of 394,000 over the month.
When President Obama took office in January 2009, there were 49,226,000 women not in the labor force. This means that since that time, 7,421,000 women have dropped out of the labor force.
The female participation rate dropped from 56.7 percent in August to 56.4 percent in September. The unemployment rate for women declined from 5.1 percent to 5.0 percent in the same time frame.