Grappling with Long Term Unemployment

Posted Sunday, June 6, 2010

Embed Audio

Download MP3 Play Video

Watch Video

The latest numbers about job growth in May belie a grim, persistent fact about the US economy: of the 15 million Americans still looking for work, almost half of those have been out of work for more than six months. Monday morning, economic analysts and some of the long term unemployed join host Dan Moulthrop to go behind all the numbers to look at the real implications of long term widespread unemployment in Ohio and across the nation.

Guests

John Schmitt, Senior Economist, Center for Economic & Policy Research
Zach Schiller, Research Director, Policy Matters Ohio

Additional Information

Staying Strong While Unemployed In Cleveland, Weekend Edition Saturday
Chronic Joblessness Bites Deep: Long-Term Unemployment Hits New High, Cuts Across Income Levels, Demographics, by Sara Murray, The Wall Street Journal

Please follow our community discussion rules when composing your comments.

Tony Tarro 9:30 AM 6/7/10

I work as a contract recruiter. I was unemployed for 1.5 years. I was luck enough to find a contract job after using my last week of unemployment compensation at the end of April. Regarding individual more aged, it truly is a problem that i find myself fighting with hiring managers to consider. The problem comes most from the individuals that are themselves older.

Tim 9:37 AM 6/7/10

Having been laid off from an IT outsourcing company last August, I was fortunate to find a position with a local non-profit long term health care provider after nearly 9 months of searching.

I believe a significant part of the problem in regards to long term unemployment is employers using this recession as an excuse to trim payroll costs and attempt to squeeze more and more work from their shrinking staff. The American worker is being rapidly devalued.

I keep hearing about the “jobless” recovery. I think that if we’re going to turn this around, government has to find a way to make the practice outlined above painful for the companies who continue to lay off or fail to re-hire, even as their profits grow. I’m not a socialist or a believer in equal division of wealth, but we need to consider something harsher than tax breaks for hiring. We need to consider high taxes on company profits over some percentage of total revenue unless hiring can keep pace with company growth.

Corporations are cutting their own throats and making the situation worse by their actions.

Tim,
North Olmsted, OH

bob 9:44 AM 6/7/10

As a mechanical engineer in his thirties who was laid off in 2008, I have a few thoughts. Unemployment compensation is meant to hold someone over until they have another income stream. I echo the comment made about becoming self employed. From sending copious numbers resumes and hearing back from basically no one while on unemployment for a few months, I realized quickly that there was really not much going on around here to “engineer”. I began realizing I would need to create my own job. I did so by combining prior online selling hobbies into full time business. It is not easy, but it has been paying the bills for more than a year. I would suggest banding together with others, friends, family, anyone who is really interested in working on a project, working at all, and combine what you know and what you enjoy into a way to make money. A word to the wise: keep it simple. Consider things you already know how to do and find a way to charge for it. It can get depressing working alone and that is why I stress banding together with your brother, your dad, your neighbor, anyone whom you trust to work together. Even if they are a partial partner, it will help you have context in what you do.

amish 9:53 AM 6/7/10

I know people who actually seem to plan on working for only enough time to be eligible for unemployment benefits...then they magically loose their job and collect benefits until they run out. It is clear: after say 6 months on normal unemplyment, I suggest offering the people a real job that pays a fair wage. If they deny it, they get kicked off the dole.

john 9:59 AM 6/7/10

SUGGESTION: add a segment of unemployment to include an option to offer unemployment compensation to those attempting to create their own business. The current system rewards those who do nothing and punishes those who try to make a sideline hobby into a real business.