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Older workers more secure, but harder to re-employ
Long-term unemployment down from early '90s high, Statistics Canada says
 
Eric Beauchesne
The Ottawa Citizen
 
Thursday, April 22, 2004
 
Older workers are less likely to be laid off than younger workers but once they are, they tend to remain unemployed 
longer, a new study of long-term unemployment has found.
 
The proportion of jobless suffering long-term unemployment (defined as those out of work a year or more), at 9.7 
per cent last year, is down sharply from the peak of 17.3 per cent during the early 1990s recession, Statistics Canada 
said in the study released yesterday.
 
But long-term unemployment remains at nearly 40 per cent more than in 1990 and 120 per higher than in the late 
1970s, it says. And the proportion of long-term unemployed older workers, aged 45 and over, was still 17 per cent last year.
 
Among the Group of Seven major industrial countries, long-term unemployment is higher in Canada than in the U.S., 
Britain and Japan but lower than in Italy, Germany and France.
 
The report says the number might understate the actual level of long-term unemployment among older workers 
because, after a year or more of being out of work, some may give up looking for jobs and drop out of the labour force
 
© The Ottawa Citizen 2004