Long-Term Unemployment

Posted on June 9, 2010 by townsend

• Many workers are jobless far longer than usual, By Kevin G. Hall, June 6, 2010, Kansas City Star: “Even as employers have resumed slowly hiring this year, a disturbing trend pulls in the opposite direction, as the number of Americans who’ve been jobless for half a year or more continues to reach new records. Throughout last year, when unemployment averaged 9.3 percent, the long-term jobless averaged 31.5 percent as a percentage of all unemployed…”
• Long-term jobless face bleak future, By Dan Chapman, June 6, 2010, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Nearly half of Georgia’s jobless have been without work for more than six months, a troubling trend that doesn’t augur well for the long-term unemployed nor Georgia’s post-recession economy. And, unlike previous recessions, men remain unemployed longer than women and whites longer than blacks, according to statistics compiled last week by the Georgia Department of Labor. The jobless pain may get worse. Congress left town last month without extending benefits for the nation’s 15 million unemployed. In Georgia, an estimated 5,000 people a week could lose financial safety nets if the Senate fails to restore the benefits…”
• Chronic joblessness bites deep, By Sara Murray, June 2, 2010, Wall Street Journal: “The job market is improving, but one statistic presents a stark reminder of the challenges that remain: Nearly half of the unemployed-45.9%-have been out of work longer than six months, more than at any time since the Labor Department began keeping track in 1948. Even in the worst months of the early 1980s, when the jobless rate topped 10% for months on end, only about one in four of the unemployed was out of work for more than six months. Overall, seven million Americans have been looking for work for 27 weeks or more, and most of them-4.7 million-have been out of work for a year or more. Long-term unemployment has reached nearly every segment of the population, but some have been particularly hard-hit. The typical long-term unemployed worker is a white man with a high-school education or less. Older unemployed workers also tend to be out of work longer. Those between ages 65 and 69 who still wish to work have typically been jobless for 49.8 weeks…”