The labor force participation rate is the percentage of people in the labor force divided by the working-age population. (The labor force is defined as people employed plus people who are unemployed, but looking for work). This chart shows labor force participation by educational attainment for residents, age 25-64. Residents with higher levels of education tend to have higher labor force participation rates, but it is still important to find ways to bring people with lower educational levels into the labor force.
The population in two of the four education attainment levels realized gains in labor force participation between 2022 and 2023. Participation rates for people with a bachelor's degree or more remained unchanged at 87.6%. The largest gain was among people with a high school degree, gaining 2.7 percentage points to 72%. Participation rates for people with less than a high school education grew by 0.6 percentage points to 53.6%. Participation rates for people with some college or an associate's degree declined by 0.2 percentage points to 79.7%. Particpation rates for all educational attainment levels are slightly greater in 2023 than they were in 2019.