United States

Labor force participation rate

Name: Labor force participation rate data for United States
Creator: World Bank
License: https://macrobymark.com/about/terms-of-use#data-providers

Labor-force participation measures the share of people working or actively looking for work. It helps distinguish weak employment from people leaving the labor force.

World Bank FRED

Frequencyannual · +1Transformlevel

Source: World Bank · SL.TLF.CACT.ZS:US

Stored official data

Labor force participation rate - United States in United States was 61.7% on January 1, 2025, lower by 0.26% (-0.4%) from the prior observation. Charted from annual observations in %.

Latest61.70%

YoY-0.41%

10Y Avg62.12%

Latest observationJanuary 1, 2025

Timeframe

Value transform

Version overlay

View

Chart appearance

TypeScale

Overlays & outputNBER bandsAuto Y

Axis & export

Min61.50%

Mean64.07%

Max66.15%

Latest observationJanuary 1, 2025

Source evidence

Tier 1 - critical

Source note Provider health

Source

World Bank Open Data

Native key

SL.TLF.CACT.ZS:US

Freshness

Stored official data

History

Current only

Reuse

Attribution allowed

Research notes

83 · Acceptable

ComparabilityLabor definitions vary by survey and agency: Do not mix levels across definitions; compare rates or changes only after matching population, adjustment, and frequency.Seasonal-adjustment status needs attention: Prefer same-adjustment comparisons, or transform to year-over-year changes before cross-series comparison.Provider comparability note: Check provider dimensions, units, and methodological notes before using this series as a model input.

4 notes

QualitySource authority: 100/100. Source kind is classified as official multilateral.Methodology completeness: 100/100. 100% of core provider, geography, unit, frequency, citation, and revision fields are populated.Timeliness and freshness: 90/100. 36 observations available; latest observation 2025-01-01; platform fetch 2026-06-16T17:16:16.454Z; release status none; data status liveRevision and vintage depth: 35/100. This provider currently exposes only the latest published values in Macro by Mark.

4/6 strong

CitationLabor force participation rate - United States (World Bank Indicators: SL.TLF.CACT.ZS, United States, retrieved Jun 16, 2026)

Retrieved Jun 16, 2026

Continue browsing

Browse all Social Protection & Labor indicatorsAdjacent concepts across providers and countries.View United States macro coverageEvery curated indicator for this country.View World Bank catalogFilter the discovery catalog by this provider.

Series details, provenance, and revision toolsMetadata, release notes, revision history, and related series.

Series details

SourceILO Modelled Estimates database (ILOEST), International Labour Organization (ILO), uri: https://ilostat.ilo.org/data/bulk/, publisher: ILOSTAT, type: external database, date accessed: January 17, 2026

CategorySocial Protection & Labor

FrequencyAnnual

Unit%

Latest observationJanuary 1, 2025

Platform last fetchJune 16, 2026

Transformslevel, yoy, index 100

About this series

Labor force participation rate, total (% of total population ages 15+) (modeled ILO estimate)

The reading right now

As of January 2025, Labor force participation rate for United States stood at 61.7%. That is down 0.26 percentage points from the prior year. Over the trailing five years, the series has averaged 61.8%, ranging from a low of 61.5% in January 2021 to a high of 62.1% in January 2023. The current reading sits 0.4 percentage points below its trailing ten-year mean of 62.1%.

Computed from the observation series on this page. Numbers update when the underlying provider revises the data.