The newest federal snapshot of layoffs makes one thing plain: age is one of the biggest predictors of whether someone gets back to work after losing a job. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that among long-tenured workers pushed out of a job between 2023 and 2025, only 38.6 percent of those 65 and older were reemployed by January 2026. Nearly half of that same group, 48.9 percent, were not even counted as unemployed, because they had stopped looking for work altogether.
Three in Five Older Workers Never Got Rehired
Of the 327,000 long-tenured workers age 65 and older who lost a job to a layoff, closure, or abolished position in the 2023-25 period, just 38.6 percent held a job again by the time the Bureau surveyed them in January 2026. Another 12.4 percent were actively job hunting but still unemployed. The remaining 48.9 percent — nearly half of everyone in the group — were classified as not in the labor force, meaning they were neither working nor actively searching for work when the survey was taken.
That 38.6 percent figure applies specifically to long-tenured workers, those who had at least three years with their employer before losing the job. Looking at all displaced workers 65 and older regardless of tenure, the Bureau’s broader count puts reemployment at 39.8 percent and labor-force exits at 46.6 percent — figures that move only slightly from the long-tenured numbers. Whether someone had worked for a company for two years or twenty, losing that job after 65 carried roughly the same odds of never returning to paid work.
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The Reemployment Gap Widens With Every Decade
The Bureau’s data lay out a clear age gradient. Reemployment ran 72.9 percent for long-tenured displaced workers age 25 to 54, dropped to 57.3 percent for the 55-to-64 group, and fell again to 38.6 percent for those 65 and older. A worker in their 30s or 40s who loses a job is roughly twice as likely to be back at work a year-plus later as a worker who loses one at 65 or beyond, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics release.
Older Workers Lost Jobs to Abolished Positions More Than Anyone Else
Workers 65 and older were also more likely than any other age group to lose a job because their position or shift was abolished outright, rather than because of a plant closing or a lack of work. Among long-tenured workers 65 and older, 48.0 percent lost their job to an abolished position, compared with 45.5 percent for workers 25 to 54 and 42.7 percent for those 55 to 64. Only 16.3 percent of older workers lost their job due to insufficient work, the lowest share of any age group, while 35.7 percent were displaced by a plant or company closing or move, according to the same Worker Displacement results tables.
Nearly Half Simply Stopped Looking
The 48.9 percent of older displaced workers who left the labor force is the highest share for any age group the Bureau tracked. By comparison, only 9.0 percent of displaced workers age 25 to 54 left the labor force, and 20.8 percent of those 55 to 64 did. The Bureau counts someone as not in the labor force only when they are neither employed nor actively seeking work, a distinction explained in its labor force characteristics guidance. That means the unemployment rate alone understates how many older workers a layoff pushed out of the workforce entirely, whether by choice or because they concluded a new job was not realistically available to them.
The Gap Between Men and Women Was Even Wider
Among displaced workers 65 and older, men were reemployed at a rate of 44.7 percent, compared with 31.7 percent for women. The pattern reversed on the other end: 56.2 percent of displaced women 65 and older left the labor force, versus 42.6 percent of men in the same age group. Both figures are well above the labor-force-exit rates for any other age or sex combination in the report, based on the same Worker Displacement release.
What a Late-Career Layoff Means for Retirement Timing
For a worker who planned to keep earning a paycheck into their late 60s, a layoff at that age does not just interrupt income for a few months — the Bureau’s numbers suggest it is more likely to end paid work altogether. Someone who counted on several more years of wages before claiming Social Security or drawing down a retirement account may instead face that decision years earlier than planned. The survey does not track why older displaced workers left the labor force instead of continuing to search, so it cannot say how many chose retirement voluntarily versus concluded that no comparable job was available. What the data do show is that a job loss late in a career is far more likely to become a permanent exit from work than the same job loss earlier in life.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
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