Since the end of the Great Recession in July 2009, the unemployment rate has fallen from 9.5% to 6.2%. In addition, the country has added 8.8 million jobs.
There are two ugly truths about the workforce that are seldom discussed in connection with this good news.
- The first ugly truth is that there are about 9.5 million unemployed in the U.S, a decline of about 5.3 million from the end of the recession. That is the good news. The bad news is that there were only about 6.7 million unemployed prior to the Great Recession.
- The second ugly truth is that almost one-third of the total unemployed have been out of work for 27 weeks or more, a decrease from 45%. By comparison, between 15% and 20% of the total unemployed were out of work between June 2005 and August 2008.
On paper the Great Recession ended five years ago. In reality the number of unemployment and the percentage of long term unemployment are inconvenient truths five years later.
