'Highly skilled & out of work'

An unusually large share of workers have been out a job for more than six months even as overall unemployment has remained low. In November 2007, nearly 1.4 million people -- almost one in five of those-unemployed -- had been jobless for at least 27 weeks, the juncture when unemployment insurance benefits end for most recipients.

"What has happened is a polarization of the labor market. It was very strong at the very top and very strong until recently at the bottom," said Lawrence F. Katz, a labor economist at Harvard-University.

Uneployment rate to grow
With the economy sliding towards a recession and the jobless rate having spiked to 5% in Dec. 07, the already high rate of long-term unemployment is likely to grow

"When people are losing good jobs these days, they have a very hard time getting back to the type of job they had before," said Andrew Stettner, of the NELP.

Via MSNBC