cross-posted from Working America's Main Street blog where I am a featured guest blogger
A new national survey of unemployed Americans reports that nearly 80 percent of those who lost jobs during the Great Recession were still without work as of March 2010.
In a report titled No End in Sight: The Agony of Prolonged Unemployment (pdf) released today by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University, researchers found that of those surveyed who were jobless in August 2009 only 13 percent had found full-time work.
According to Professor Carl Van Horn, a co-author of the report:
"Despite recent signs that the worst phase of the Great Recession may be behind us, the vast majority of jobless Americans have not found new jobs. When they did find work, most took pay cuts and/or lost benefits. Among those still searching for work -- many for more than a year -- are millions who have never been without a job and who have at least a college education. The inability of these job seekers to find new opportunities is an economic and cultural disaster."
The report is based on a six-month follow-up survey of unemployed Americans included in a September 2009 study titled The Anguish of Unemployment.
This latest follow-up found that of those who were jobless last August only 21 percent had found any work. Less than 10 percent had found jobs that were at least on par with their previous pay levels. Of those newly reemployed more than half had settled for lower pay, and more than one-third had accepted reduced benefits.
In what will come as no surprise to many older jobless workers, the new survey found only 12 percent of those over age 50 had found either full- or part-time work, compared to 21 percent of those age 30 to 49, and 29 percent ages 18 to 29.
Professor Cliff Zukin, the study's other co-author, said:
"Six months after we last contacted these jobless workers, they have absorbed the initial shock. Yet with each passing month, the extreme length of this downturn is taking a great emotional as well as economic toll on them and their families. It is difficult to speak of economic recovery as long as these long-term unemployed continue to be left behind."
Two-thirds of those surveyed said they do not view the Great Recession as a "temporary downturn" -- and a similar number also said they favor federal government programs to create jobs for the unemployed.
That not more is being done to create good jobs and bring the economy back to full employment for the nearly 30 million unemployed and underemployed is -- I'd say -- a national disgrace.