Recovery-less Recovery: Unemployment Duration February 2011

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Today's employment situation report showed that conditions for the long term unemployed were mixed in February while remaining epically distressed by historic standards.

Workers unemployed 27 weeks or more declined to 5.993 million or 43.9% of all unemployed workers while the median number of weeks unemployed declined to 21.2 weeks and the average stay on unemployment jumped to 37.1 weeks, a new high for the series.

Looking at the charts below (click for super interactive versions) you can see that today’s sorry situation far exceeds even the conditions seen during the double-dip recessionary period of the early 1980s, long considered by economists to be the worst period of unemployment since the Great Depression.

Full Time Workers Fully Under Pressure: February 2011

Today’s employment situation report showed that the full time unemployment rate declined to 9.5% of the civilian workforce still remaining very near the highest rate seen in 41 years.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics considers full time workers to be those “who have expressed a desire to work full time (35 hours or more per week) or are on layoff from full-time jobs”.

Full time jobless workers currently account for roughly 88.5% of all unemployed workers.

Envisioning Employment: Employment Situation February 2011

Today’s Employment Situation Report showed that in February, net nonfarm payrolls increased by 192,000 while private nonfarm payrolls added a notable 222,000 as the unemployment rate declined to 8.9%.

Net private sector jobs increased 0.21% since last month remaining a whopping 6.32% below the peak level of employment seen in December 2007 though, on a year-over-year basis, private jobs showed a notable increase of 1.43%.