At this rate of job growth, it will still take 20 years to reduce unemployment to pre-recession levels

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“The pool of ‘missing workers,’ i.e., workers who dropped out of (or didn’t enter) the labor force during the downturn, remains large,” she said.

She explained that the labor force should have increased by about 3.9 million workers from December 2007 to October 2010, given working-age population growth over that period. Instead it has, astoundingly, stayed essentially flat (+35,000).

“This means that the pool of missing workers now numbers around 3.9 million,” she said.
“None of these workers are currently reflected in the official unemployment count, but as they enter or re-enter the labor force in search of work, this will contribute to keeping the unemployment rate high.”

In addition, the proportion of jobless workers who have been unemployed for over six months basically held steady in October (edging up from 41.7 percent to 41.8 percent), though it is down significantly from its record high of 46 percent in May.

“The decline since May likely reflects workers dropping out of the labor force after exhausting unemployment insurance benefits,” Shierholz explained.

“Extending unemployment insurance in a severe downturn, despite assertions to the contrary, can actually provide an impetus for workers to continue to look for work even in the face of very low chances of finding a job -- if they stop looking, they’ll lose their unemployment insurance.”

There are now an estimated 6.2-million workers who have been jobless for more than six months, the highest on record.