Male unemployment duration of more than one year in USA, UK, Canada, Germany and France since 1968 or earliest date

I do not know enough about Canadian politics and unemployment insurance arrangements to understand why its percentage of long-term unemployed did not change much after the global financial crisis while it skyrocketed in the USA. European unemployment duration is already been long. There was a significant improvement in the number of long-term unemployed as percentage of all unemployed men under the horrors of Thatcherism.

Data extracted on 13 Oct 2015 01:30 UTC (GMT) from OECD.Stat.

Australian and New Zealand harmonised unemployment rates since 1956

The unemployment rate was zero in New Zealand in 1956, 1957 and 1961. Apparently no one was jobless even for a day in New Zealand when changing jobs or entering or re-entering the workforce from outside employment, from school or other educational callings or as a migrant, if the OECD data is to be believed.

Data extracted on 13 Oct 2015 00:11 UTC (GMT) from OECD.Stat.

 

Unemployment was 1% for the rest of the 1960s in New Zealand before skyrocketing to 2.5% in 1975. By 1983, under the best of the good old days before the scourge of neoliberalism, unemployment rate had reached 5.5% after a steady increase from more than a decade.

The less than 1% unemployment was mostly under National Party rule but this era is looked upon with great fondness by the left-wing in New Zealand. Same in Australia where the good old days are known as the Menzies era: 23 years of Conservative party rule but beloved now by the left-wing as the ideal mixed economy.

Australian unemployment rates in the late 1960s was also pretty low given the requirements of labour market churn and entry on re-entry into the labour force.

US, Canadian and British harmonised unemployment rates since 1955 or earliest date

Canada has had much worse unemployment rates than the USA since the late 1970s. British unemployment rates have been doing okay since the late 1990s until the global financial crisis.

Data extracted on 13 Oct 2015 00:11 UTC (GMT) from OECD.Stat

Unemployment benefit receipt in English-speaking countries as % of working age population, 2010

I am surprised how high the number is in the USA, and how low it is in New Zealand as a percentage of the working age population.

Source: OECD Society at a Glance, Table 5.10.

Ireland has a secondary out of work benefit for the unemployed that adds another 8.7% to their welfare rolls in 2010 but it is not in the OECD data table for the above graph.

More than 15% of unemployed Europeans haven’t had a job for more than four years

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https://twitter.com/MiltonFriedmanS/status/630956276554444800/photo/1

Incidence of long-term unemployment in the PIGS since 1983

The boom that preceded the bust in the Greek economy did nothing for the rate of long-term unemployment among Greeks. Long-term unemployment had been pretty stable prior to the economic boom after joining the euro currency union.

image

Source: OECD StatExtract.

Nothing much happened to long-term unemployment in Italy or Portugal in recent decades. Spanish long-term unemployment fell in line with the economic boom in Spain over the 1980s and 1990s up until the global financial crisis.

% of unemployment lasting longer than 12 months in Scandinavia since 1976

As I recall, most unemployed have been unemployed longer than 12 months in Sweden have to go on a labour market program. When they returned to unemployment after the program, the clock starts again. They are deemed to be freshly unemployed rather than adding to the previous spell with an interlude on a make work program. This makes Swedish long-term unemployment data rather unintelligible.

image

Source: OECD StatExtract.

Finland was recovering from its worst depression since the 1930s and the early 1990s when its data on long-term unemployment started to be continuous. This makes Finnish unemployment data rather difficult to interpret. Norway’s data for the long-term unemployed goes up and down a bit too much to be trustworthy without a background policy narrative.

% of unemployment that is more than 12 months, USA, UK, Germany and France

As the British labour market and long-term unemployment was starting to get something like that in the USA, the USA started to have unemployment it was more like the European labour markets in terms of the number of long-term unemployed. Nothing much happened in Germany and France.

image

Source: OECD StatExtract.

Italian unemployment incidence by duration since 1983

Unemployment of more than a year was slowly tapering down in Italy before the global financial crisis, but ever so slowly.

image

Source: OECD StatExtract.

German unemployment incidence by duration since 1983

German long term unemployment has been pretty stable albeit with an up-and-down after German unification. There is also a fall in long-term unemployment after some labour market reforms around 2005.

image

Source: OECD StatExtract.

New Zealand unemployment incidence by duration since 1986

There has been bit of a wild ride in long-term unemployment in New Zealand. Long-term unemployment – longer than one year – ranging from just over 8% of unemployment in 1986 to nearly 40% in 1992 then down to 5% in 2008. Clearly the duration of unemployment in New Zealand is highly sensitive to the business cycle unlike the case in the USA or UK.

image

Source: OECD StatExtract.

This sensitivity of long-term unemployment to the business cycle does not bode well for the hypothesis of hysteresis where human capital depreciates the longer a jobseeker is out of employment. For this hypothesis to hold, there must be some enduring aspect of long-term unemployment rather than just going up and down with the business cycle rather noticeably.

The rival hypothesis to hysteresis is the long-term unemployed tend to be those who have a lot of trouble getting employment, which is why they end up been unemployed for a long time. Again in New Zealand, these less employable jobseekers appear to be able to find jobs quite easily when the labour market is good.

British unemployment incidence by duration since 1983

In contrast to the USA, there is been a long-term decline in long-term unemployment, that is unemployment of more than a year, in the British economy over the 1990s. The situation then stabilised and then increased after the global financial crisis. There is also a rather rapid fall in long-term unemployment in the mid-1980s as the British economy recovered under Thatchernomics

image

Source: OECD StatExtract.

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