The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment
It's an awful catch-22: employers won't hire you if you've been out of work for more than six months
Matthew O'Brien Apr 13 2013, 11:48 AM ET
Close your eyes and picture the scariest thing you can think of. Maybe it's a giant spider or a giant Stay Puft marshmallow man or something that's not even giant at all. Well, whatever it is, I guarantee it's not nearly as scary as the real scariest thing in the world. That's long-term unemployment.
There are two labor markets nowadays. There's the market for people who have been out of work for less than six months, and the market for people who have been out of work longer. The former is working pretty normally, and the latter is horribly dysfunctional. That was the conclusion of recent research I highlighted a few months ago by Rand Ghayad, a visiting scholar at the Boston Fed and a PhD candidate in economics at Northeastern University, and William Dickens, a professor of economics at Northeastern University, that looked at Beveridge curves for different ages, industries, and education levels to see who the recovery is leaving behind.
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http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/the-terrifying-reality-of-longterm-unemployment/274957/
