It’s tough out there… and it’s gonna get lots tougher!

Highly Skilled And Out Of Work

Long-Term Joblessness Spreads in Middle Class

An unusually large share of workers have been out a job for more than six months even as overall unemployment has remained low, a little-noted weakness in the labor market that analysts said threatens to intensify the impact of the unfolding economic downturn.

In November, nearly 1.4 million people — almost one in five of those unemployed — had been jobless for at least 27 weeks, the juncture when unemployment insurance benefits end for most recipients. That is about twice the level of long-term unemployment before the 2001 recession.
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“What has happened is a polarization of the labor market. It was very strong at the very top and very strong until recently at the bottom,” said Lawrence F. Katz, a labor economist at Harvard University. “But in the recent weak recovery, and now recession, demand has been very weak” for jobs in the middle.