In addition to the poor headline Establishment survey print which rose only 160,000 in April, coupled with a deplorable Household survey employment number which plunged by 316,000 for the month and below levels seen in February, an even more concerning development was the resumption in the deteriorating trend in the US labor force participation rate, which in recent months had been on a steady increase as far fewer workers were dropping out of the workforce (contrary to convention wisdom, this was not driven by new entrants into the labor force).

All that changed today, when the number of Americans not in the labor force soared by a whopping 562,000 in April, pushing the grand total of people not in the labor force back over 94 million and fast approaching the all time high of 94.6 million.

As a result, the participation rate, which recently had climbed to 63% or the highest since early 2014, has once again resumed its downward slope with the April print down to just 62.8% as the poor labor and demographic conditions once again emerge as a key driver within the US workforce.