Report – Long-term Hardship in the Labor Market

Long-term Hardship in the Labor Market, John Schmitt and Janelle Jones, March 2012

“For more than two years, long-term unemployment has been at historically high rates. Even as the overall unemployment rate inched down at the end of 2011, more than 40 percent of the 13 million unemployed had been out of work for six months or longer. To put this in perspective, the previous all-time peak in the long-term unemployment rate in June 1983 was just 26 percent. Even so, this standard long-term unemployment rate conceals an important part of the story of long-term hardship in the labor market. Using the terminology of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2011, almost one million people were discouraged workers, another 1.5 million were marginally attached to the labor force, and many millions more had left the labor force altogether. Over four million workers were stuck in part-time jobs because they could not find full-time work or because their previously full-time hours had been cut. Still others were among the nations prison and jail population of two million, who are not counted, by design, in official labor-market statistics. Many of the people in these circumstances had been there for six months or longer, but none were included in the official tally of the long-term unemployed.”

Report – Long-term Hardship in the Labor Market

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