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Since 2000, the national labor force participation rate, the percentage of people over 16 years of age who are either employed or actively seeking a job, has been slowly falling. This trend, however, hides considerable disparities between different age groups. The current recession has exacerbated these disparities, as the chart below illustrates.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
The decline in labor force participation among those between the ages of 16 and 24 has accelerated since the start of the recession. Given the poor job prospects in today's economy, young people most likely are opting to stay in school longer. (Full-time students who are not employed are not considered to be part of the labor force, according to the official definition used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.) At the opposite end of the spectrum, people close to or past retirement age have increased their labor force participation since the start of the recession. Moreover, the labor force participation of people just past the retirement age (65 to 69 years old) has increased more dramatically than that of people 55 to 64. (The labor force participation rate of people over 65 years old is always considerably lower than that of younger age groups. To make it easier to compare the trends, the series depicting labor force participation rate for 65-69 year old group is plotted on the secondary axis.) Since the start of the recession, labor force participation among people between the ages of 65 and 69 increased by 1.6 percentage points (from 30 to 31.6 percent), while the labor force participation of those between 54 and 64 increased by 0.8 percentage point (from 64.5 to 65.3 percent). For both of these groups, the labor force participation rates are now at the highest levels on record. It is likely that people close to or past the retirement age feel the need to work because their retirement savings have suffered in the recent financial crisis. Unfortunately, the recession makes finding jobs more difficult for people of all ages, as the chart below shows. Although many young people have dropped out of the labor force, the unemployment rate among those aged 16 to 24 has increased dramatically since the start of the recession. It stood at 16.7 percent in April. (The unemployment rate represents the percentage of those in the labor force who is currently unemployed.) 
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
The unemployment rate among people close to the retirement age also has increased significantly. The unemployment rate for those between the ages of 55 and 64 reached 6.7 percent in March, a level not seen since 1983. The unemployment rate for people between 65 and 69 reached 6.8 percent in February – the highest level on record. Since then it has fallen a bit but still remains high at 6.4 percent. It seems that the financial crisis, which destroyed retirement savings, has forced people of retirement age back into the labor force, but tough labor market conditions have pushed the unemployment rate among this age group to record highs.
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