COVID-19 and subsequent lockdown measures significantly affected the civilian labor force participation rate and the unemployment rate. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2021), 61.4% is the last known so far civilian labor force participation rate. The current U-3 total unemployed percentage is 6.3, while the current U-6 total unemployed is 11.1% (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021). It is safe to say that the difference in these two measures is due to the method of counting, or more precisely, groups of people included. The U-3 category includes only people in the civilian labor force (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021).
U-6 consists of “total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part-time for economic reasons” (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021, para. 6). These categories of persons are the reason why the numbers in the table vary almost twofold.
As mentioned above, the primary influencer of the decline in the current labor participation rate and the increase in the current unemployment rate is the COVID-19 pandemic. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2021) itself notes that changes in the labor market are primarily associated due to the pandemic and COVID-19 anti-spreading policies. A prime example is a sharp drop to 60.2% in April 2020 in the line graph of the civilian labor force participation rate (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021). However, the general recession started after the 2008-2009 economic crisis, and it seems that the civilian labor force participation rate will not rise in the future. It is clearly seen that the economy and society are still overwhelmed by the previous crisis.
References
Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2021). The employment situation — January 2021. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Web.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2021). Civilian labor participation rate. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Web.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2021). Table A-15. Alternative measures of labor underutilization. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Web.