Declining labor force participation, lower birth rates and a collapse in net migration are combining to squeeze the U.S. labor supply.
The looming labor shortage could begin to weigh on businesses and strain economic growth as soon as later this year, according to a new quarterly report from CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange.
With the labor supply about to get tighter, businesses and industries operating in rural America should be increasing their focus on technology to overcome labor availability challenges.
The labor force participation rate has trended downward since 2000, and the trend may be accelerating.
Nearly 2.5 million working-aged people dropped out of the labor force in the past eight months alone.
The U.S. fertility rate has plummeted since the Great Financial Crisis in 2008, reducing the number of native-born citizens entering the workforce.
The loss of those new workers coincides with baby boom generation retirements, amplifying the impact on the overall labor supply.
