Highly Skilled And Out Of Work

Washington Post

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.

I am not convinced that unemployment has been low. The way unemployment is classified was changed by the Bush administration when they first came into office. I suspect there are quite a few millions not even included in the statistics because they stopped receiving unemployment benefits.

No doubt, when the current crop of unemployed lose their benefits, the unemployment rate will drop even more. Gee, convenient, huh?