Millennials now biggest generation in work force: Pew

Gen X work force participation peaked at 84 percent in 2008, according to Pew. A decade earlier, when Gen Xers were the same age as today’s millennials, only 80 percent were in the labor force.

This suggests, Pew said, that the millennial work force has room to grow.

Diminishing work force participation

Gen Xers dominated the U.S. work force for only three years, overtaking baby boomers in 2012. That likely ended this year with the rise of millennial participation, although Pew hesitated to say so definitively.

Analysts said in the report that immigration would add some workers to the Gen X labor force.

As well, if the job market improvements continue in the post-recession era, Gen Xers will likely return to the labor market in stronger numbers.

But time is not on their side. The oldest ones are now 50, and beginning to age out of the prime 25-to-54 working years, which might counteract any potential growth in the Gen X workforce.

Pew also noted that the Census Bureau had projected that the millennial population as a whole (not just its workforce) would surpass that of baby boomers in 2015 as the U.S.’s largest living generation. Generation X is smaller, with about 66 million people in 2014, compared with about 75 million boomers and millennials.

The report said some 45 million boomers were in the labor force in the first quarter, down from a peak of 66 million in 1997. As more of this generation retires every year, and with little growth from immigration, the size of the boomer work force will continue to shrink.