Fewer US workers have gone on strike since the 1970s

The number of U.S. workers who take part in strikes in a year varies greatly while generally following broader trends. The totals for strikers starting in the early 1980s were sharply lower than any time since the Great Depression. But the number of strikers in 2023 was the highest in 40 years.

Line chart showing a decline in numbers after the 1940s and again in the 1970s.
1916-1979 data includes nearly all strikes in that period; 1980-2022 data includes only strikes with 1,000 or more workers. 2023 data only covers the first 10 months of the year.
Chart: The Conversation, CC-BY-NDSource: Judith Stepan-Norris and Jasmine Kerrissey (1916-1979); Bureau of Labor Statistics(1980- 2022) Get the dataDownload imageCreated with Datawrapper