Unemployment Rate Dips for Older Adults in April, but That Might Not Be Good News

The national unemployment rate for workers 55 and older fell to 3 percent in April. But before registering that as good news, consider what might have produced the drop.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported Friday that the economy added 115,000 jobs last month and that the overall unemployment rate held steady at 4.3 percent. For older workers, the March-to-April drop from 3.3 percent to 3 percent sounds like progress. Yet the numbers underneath it suggest a different story might be happening.

The number of unemployed workers 55 and older dropped by 109,000 between March and April. But that drop doesn’t mean they found jobs. In fact, employment in that age group barely moved, rising by just 11,000. The difference suggests that the other 98,000 people stopped looking for jobs. Overall, more than 1.1 million job seekers age 55 and older were unemployed in April.

Julius Probst, senior economist at Appcast, says we shouldn’t read too much into that single-month drop. The more granular the data gets, the more volatile it can become. Smaller subgroups mean fewer survey respondents, which can make the numbers less reliable month to month.

The official unemployment rate only counts people who are actively searching for work. Stop looking and you’re no longer counted. The national labor force participation rate slipped slightly to 61.8 percent in April from 61.9 percent in March. The employment-population ratio fell to 59.1 percent from 59.2 percent. Both have edged down over the year.

Six million people were not in the labor force in April but told the BLS they want a job. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not actively looked for work in the four weeks before the survey or were not available to take a job. Discouraged workers, a subset who believe no jobs exist for them, held at 475,000.

“A lower unemployment rate can mean that more people are finding work or that fewer people are looking,” Nicole Bachaud, a ZipRecruiter labor economist, tells AARP. “This is also true for the 55-plus workforce, where long-term unemployment can spill over into a forced retirement for many.”

Long-term unemployment did not budge. The number of people jobless for 27 weeks or more remained essentially unchanged at 1.8 million, accounting for 25.3 percent of all unemployed people. “Becoming unemployed is more of a long-term position in today’s market than a short-term pit stop,” Bachaud says.