Labor market engagement is stronger than it looks

Research evidence excerpt

Labor market engagement is stronger than it looks

IdeaM

The sharp decline in the labor force participation rate (LFPR) over the past year, including

the sharp drop in June, points to an exodus from the labor force and suggests that labor

market slack may be greater than the unemployment rate indicates. The labor force

participation rate (the share of the population, either working or unemployed and looking

for work) is reported to have declined 0.8pp in past 12 months: 0.5pp from June 2025 to

May 2026, then a 0.3pp month-to-month decline in June alone.

The reported decline grossly exaggerates disengagement from the labor

market

Decomposing the changes of the past year, 0.4pp of the decline appears to reflect a break

in the series: a one-time shift because of how the BLS incorporates new population

estimates with a lag. Without that, the change in LFPR would have been just -0.1pp

between June 2025 and May 2026 despite an underlying drag from the aging of the

population. In contrast, the 0.3pp month-to-month decline in LFPR in June, if true, would

be a troublesome sign of labor market disengagement, but it looks to us more like noisy

and distorted measurement. We expect a July rebound in LFPR that is reflected in higher

employment rather than higher unemployment. If subsequent data does not reverse a

portion of the June decline, then we may need to re-evaluate our position. For now, we

expect some reversal.

The -0.4pp drag from the “population control”

Each year in January, the BLS makes new population and demographic assumptions—

outright shifts in the population shares of the various demographic groups. This affects

the overall LFPR because the demographic details are essential to the aggregation of

responses.