There are still more than 3 million Americans who have been unemployed for more than 52 weeks and, as WSJ reports [3], economists (via recent studies) worry they will never work again. Of course, with benefits at such heights (and work punished) [4], it is not surprising but on the demand side, for the long-term unemployed, interview "callback rates decrease dramatically at 9 months of unemployment." Worst still, for those applying for medium-to-low skilled jobs (so the majority), being long-term unemployed reduced interview requests by 20% - the equivalent of shaving four years of work experience off their resumes. Critically, one study found employers showed "a strong distaste for applicants with long spells of non-employment."
Sad...
[5]
But remember this:
[4]
Via WSJ [3],
Do the long-term unemployed face a stigma that keeps them from finding jobs? A new experiment suggests the answer is “yes”
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More than three million Americans have been out of work for more than a year, a figure that leaves out millions of others who have given up looking for work because they can’t find jobs. Economists worry many of them will never work again.
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In a forthcoming paper in the American Economic Review, the researchers find that short-term spells of unemployment (those of six months or less) had no effect on job-seekers’ prospects.... But for the long-term unemployed, it was a different story: “The callback rate decreases dramatically at nine months of unemployment,” the researchers write. For those applying for medium or low-skill jobs (those not requiring a college degree), being long-term unemployed reduced interview requests by 20%, the equivalent of shaving four years of work experience off their resumes.
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The good news for the long-term unemployed: If they can find work, the stigma of their joblessness should wash away fairly quickly.
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Northeastern University graduate student Rand Ghayad conducted a similar experiment in the U.S. last year. His research, which hasn’t yet been published, found that employers showed “a strong distaste for applicants with long spells of non-employment” — even when they had better experience than applicants who had been unemployed for less time.