Long-term joblessness is growing

WASHINGTON, Jan. 21 (UPI) -- Long-term joblessness has begun to show up in U.S. unemployment statistics even as the unemployment rate remains relatively steady, a report said.

In November, almost 1.4 million Americans -- representing about 20 percent of all unemployed U.S. workers -- had been without work for at least 27 weeks, The Washington Post reported Monday.

That is about twice as much long-term unemployment as the job market experienced prior to the 2001 recession, the newspaper said, and analysts say the problem threatens to intensify the impact of the current economic slowdown.

The phenomenon is spread more broadly throughout the economy than it has been in the past. Long-term unemployment has gone from affecting primarily manufacturing workers and people with little work history, education or skills, and is growing most rapidly among more experienced and college educated workers in white-collar positions.

The extended recovery that followed the 2001 downturn featured strong corporate profits, low inflation and record manufacturing output, the report said, but some economists have called the expansion a "CEO's recovery." Real wages have been mostly flat, poverty has grown and an unusually large number of unemployed people have had difficulty finding jobs.