Job Force Participation Rate At 36-Year Low; Experts Say It'll Probably Get Worse

Less than 160 million Americans age 16 and older participated in the work force in August, the lowest number in nearly 40 years, according to the latest numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

A BLS survey of the civilian non-institutional population, meaning those who are not in the military or an institution like prison, found that 155,959,000 out of approximately 250 million people 16 and older either had a job or were looking for one in August.

The labor force participation rate went from July's 62.9 percent to 62.8 for August, a dip that brings the rate to the lowest since 1978, Market Watch pointed out.

Reversely, a whopping 92 million people did not participate in the work force, meaning they did not have a job and did not actively seek one in the last month. They are not considered "unemployed" because the BLS reserves that term for those who don't have a job but are actively looking for one.

Experts predict the participation rate will continue to decline, Market Watch noted.

A major reason is due to the ageing baby boomer population. According to a Federal research paper on labor force participation, there will be an estimated 2.5 percentage rate drop over the next decade driven by retiring baby boomers.

But the August BLS report was not all grim. The number of employed Americas went up 16,000 people, from 146,352,000 to 146,368,000.

Economics professor Alan Krueger, of Princeton University, said the overall jobs report is "anomalous."

"It sticks out compared to other indicators we're getting about how the job market and the economy are doing. The labor market is healing," Krueger, a former head of President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, told Bloomberg News.