Average Length of Unemployment Remains High | WPN World People News

The U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics recently reported that the average length of unemployment among American households in August of 2011 was 40.3 weeks. That is the longest on record. This trend is confirmed by A New Horizon Credit Counseling Services, a nonprofit organization providing credit counseling and debt management to displaced workers. Stephen D. Marcus, President of the A New Horizon Credit Counseling explains, “We are in monthly contact with our clients and survey them quarterly. Our information confirms the Department of Labor statistics. It is particularly noticeable among older workers and recent college graduates”.

Another noticeable characteristic of the current trend is that while recessions of the past affected a broader range of workers, the current economic downturn has involved relatively fewer industries and their workers, and as the economy continues to lag, this group of workers falls further behind. That is because these are industries that were disappearing more permanently or they were less productive to start with. Marcus added, “The longer a person is out of work, the harder it is for him or her to find work. This can be a result of stigma, deterioration of skills, less intense searching due to frustration, or even discrimination by employers against an unemployed applicant”. While employers have increased hiring, they are disproportionately hiring workers who have spent less time unemployed.

Another explanation for the increase in time a worker is unemployed is that with unemployment benefits getting extended upon the requirement that the recipients are actively seeking a job, more candidates keep searching where they might otherwise have accepted work, even if it was not the ideal job.