Friday, July 02, 2010
About 40% of all unemployed workers had been jobless for six months or longer by the end of 2009—the highest rate ever recorded by the federal government going back to 1948. This percentage of long-term unemployed represented 6.1 million Americans, out of a total of 15.3 million who were without jobs, for a total unemployment rate of 10%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Nearly 20% of long-term unemployed were younger workers in their twenties. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports: “This is not unusual, because youths have made up a disproportionately larger share of the long-term jobless in every recession but one since 1976.”
The good news for younger workers is they have “a relatively low probability of remaining jobless for a half year or more,” says the bureau.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Long-Term Unemployment Experience of the Jobless (by Randy Ilg, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)
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