Revolving unemployment

Some people think of unemployment as someone losing a job, staying unemployed for a while and then finally getting a new job. But this isn’t always the case, explains N.C. State University economist Mike Walden.

“We actually have a new category, at least that economists have come up with (for) unemployment. We call it revolving unemployment. And this type is very different from the kind that you describe. This is the kind of unemployment where a person may lose their job, stay employed for awhile, then get been another job, then however they lose that job and the process goes on and on and on. So they spend a lot of time out of work in between jobs.

“Often these jobs are part-time. Now we don’t have really good data on the number of people in this situation, but we do think that it is increased significantly since the recession.

“And another problem here is that people are moving from job to job the job. A lot of these are part-time jobs. They obviously don’t build up any experience that allows them to move ahead in a job market.

“So revolving unemployment seems to be a new category for which we don’t have immediate solutions.”