A new ‘Work & Skills’ initiative is needed for people who are long-term unemployed. Next year there could be between 1 to 1.6 million people who have been out of work for 12 months or more. This could be the highest since the 1980s and will have drastic implications for families and whole communities across … Continue reading
Recent evidence from large-scale field experiments has shown that employers use job candidates’ unemployment duration as a sorting criterion. In the present study, we investigate the mechanisms underlying this pattern. To this end, we conduct a lab experiment in which participants make hiring decisions concerning fictitious job candidates with diverging unemployment durations. In addition, these … Continue reading
In confidential interviews, HR recruiters have told me that in the absence of a referral, older long-term unemployed job seekers often face an uphill battle when competing with currently-working younger applicants. Research confirms that the likelihood of an employer inviting a job seeker for an interview is lower for someone with relevant experience but long-term … Continue reading
Based on original polling across five European countries, this report explores employers’ views on a range of issues related to long-term unemployment – their attitudes towards the unemployed, especially on skills and employability, and the effectiveness of their contact with public employment services. Employers are central to resolving long-term unemployment: they will decide whether or … Continue reading
More than 20% of Americans laid off the past five years are still unemployed and one in four who found work is in a temporary job, according to a survey out Monday. The report underscores that despite a sharp drop in long-term unemployment recently, many people out of work at least six months are still … Continue reading
In “Are the Long-Term Unemployed on the Margins of the Labor Market?” Alan B. Krueger, Judd Cramer, and David Cho of Princeton University find that even after finding another job, reemployment does not fully reset the clock for the long-term unemployed, who are frequently jobless again soon after they gain reemployment: only 11 percent … Continue reading
Route2Work: Employment support for the very-hardest-to-help, says that paying private and voluntary providers to help people back into work is a sensible approach to reducing unemployment. However, there needs to be a new complementary scheme that encourages and rewards charities, social enterprises and small-scale providers to help the most vulnerable people Continue reading
In the economy-focused presidential campaign, the two candidates and their teams have scarcely mentioned what economists describe as not just one of the labor market’s most pressing problems, but the entire country’s: long-term unemployment. Nearly five million Americans out of work for more than six months are left to wonder what kind of help might … Continue reading
Janice Pratt came here in the 1980s for the booming local economy, but now the city’s unemployment rate is 9 percent. She hasn’t had steady work since 2008 when she lost her job with a tech company after a lengthy marketing career. Pratt fears the mere fact that she is unemployed is hurting her chances … Continue reading
The analysts pore over the numbers every month, the full menagerie of economic indicators. President Obama and Mitt Romney trade barbs over who is at fault for a sluggish recovery. But here, in a region with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, other numbers often loom larger. There are the roughly … Continue reading
Of all the mediocre and bad news in the June 2012 employment situation report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there is one item that deserves serious concern: the fact that long-term unemployment continues to plague the labor market. The average duration of unemployment is stuck at about 40 weeks, where it has been for … Continue reading
Starting in summer 2010, when many hoped an era of recovery would begin, and continuing through the holiday season six months later, HARD TIMES: LOST ON LONG ISLAND spotlights the challenges facing highly skilled, well-educated Long Islanders who lost their jobs. Public relations professional Anne Strauss notes, “Being unemployed for two years is not just … Continue reading
Many long-term unemployed will begin seeing their federal jobless benefits disappear starting this week. This round affects the jobless in at least 24 states, while all Americans will be affected in the fall.
In Philadelphia, Steve Nathan and Rita Calicat have not been able to find work, and struggle to cope after reaching the limit of 99 weeks of unemployment benefits Click on the image to watch on Time web site
Making employment supports available to all job-seekers would level the playing field and help the province’s neediest escape poverty, says Ontario’s social services review commission, headed by Frances Lankin and Munir Sheikh. The commission’s final report, to be released in June, will also include recommendations on how to improve the administration of the province’s two … Continue reading