Labor Force

The "labor force" as a general econ term just refers to all the people who can and want to (and do) work, contributing to GDP.

While the labor force isn’t a technical term, the "civilian labor force" totally is. The civilian labor force is a metric used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the U.S., referring to pretty much everyone (employed or unemployed) that can work, but excluding U.S. government hires, like federal government employees and militial folk. To note, handicapped and discouraged workers don’t count in the unemployment rate, since they aren’t included in the civilian labor force (only actively working or looking-for-work peeps included).

The distinction between the general idea of the labor force as an enigma of people working and trying to find work, and the civilian labor force, is an important one. If you’re getting down-n-dirty with numbers and employment, make sure you remember the difference (or you might soon be unemployed…just another statistic in the BLS book).