<p><a href=“The Biggest Predictor of How Long You’ll Be Unemployed Is When You Lose Your Job | FiveThirtyEight ”>http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-biggest-predictor-of-how-long-youll-be-unemployed-is-when-you-lose-your-job/</a></p> ;
<p>Perhaps not a big surprise, but the risk of becoming long term unemployed is most related to the unemployment rate at the time of job loss.</p>
<p>However, better economic times do not appear to help the long term unemployed return to employment, because the long term unemployed are seen as “damaged” by employers.</p>
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Ben Casselman at fivethirtyeight.com:
The long-term unemployed are mostly people who lost jobs at a time when companies weren’t hiring. Once they had been out of work for more than a few months, their chances of getting hired fell off dramatically: Multiple experiments have found that employers are reluctant to consider candidates who have been out of work for more than six months, even when those candidates are more qualified. Worse, recent research from former Obama administration economics adviser Alan Krueger and others suggests that most of the long-term unemployed are unlikely to find stable employment even if the economy improves.</p>
<p>Taken together, these are discouraging findings. A weak economy can cause long-term unemployment, but a stronger economy can’t fix it.
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