US – Long-Term Unemployment is elevated across all education, age, occupation, industry, gender, and racial and ethnic groups

Long-term unemployment is elevated for workers at every education level.

The table below provides additional breakdowns of long-term unemployment by age, gender, race/ethnicity, occupation, and industry. For each category, the table shows the long-term unemployment rate in 2007, the long-term unemployment rate in 2013, and ratio of the two. It demonstrates that while there is considerable variation in long-term unemployment rates across groups—which is always true, in good times and bad—the long-term unemployment rate is substantially higher now than it was before the recession started for all groups. The long-term unemployment rate is between 2.9 and 4.3 times as high now as it was six years ago for all age, education, occupation, industry, gender, and racial and ethnic groups. Today’s long-term unemployment crisis is not at all confined to unlucky or inflexible workers who happen to be looking for work in specific occupations or industries where jobs aren’t available. Long-term unemployment is elevated in every group, in every occupation, in every industry, at all levels of education.

Elevated long-term unemployment for all groups, like we see today, means that today’s long-term unemployment crisis is not due to something wrong with these workers, it is due to the fact that businesses across the board simply haven’t needed to significantly increase hiring because they haven’t seen demand for their goods and services pick up enough to warrant it.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at Long-Term Unemployment Is Elevated Across All Education, Age, Occupation, Industry, Gender, And Racial And Ethnic Groups | Economic Policy Institute.

Related articles

• US / Who Are the Long-Term Unemployed?
• Long-term unemployment in US since 1950 – A chart
• The Skills Gap in US – Mismatch across industries and occupations explains at most one-third of the total observed increase in the unemployment rate
• Skills gap prevents organizations filling STEM positions with diverse candidates
• US / Long- term unemployment spans all industries, education levels, age groups, and among blue- and white-collar workers
• US / The unique importance of UI for today’s unemployed workers