August 28, 2012 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Employment status of displaced workers

From January 2009 through December 2011, 6.1 million workers were displaced from jobs they had held for at least 3 years. Of the workers displaced during the 2009–2011 period, 56 percent were reemployed in January 2012, up from 49 percent for the prior survey in January 2010 (which covered the period from January 2007 through December 2009).

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The proportion unemployed at the time of the most recent survey (January 2012) was 27 percent, down from 36 percent in the January 2010 survey. In January 2012, 17 percent of long-tenured displaced workers were not in the labor force, up from 15 percent for the previous survey.

In January 2012, reemployment rates were about 62 percent for workers ages 20 to 54. Reemployment rates were lower for older workers. The rates for those ages 55 to 64 and 65 years and over were 47 and 24 percent, respectively. Among those age 65 and over, 49 percent were no longer in the labor force when surveyed in January 2012.

Among long-tenured displaced workers, men had a higher reemployment rate (61 percent) in January 2012 than women (50 percent). The reemployment rate for men increased from 49 percent in January 2010, while the rate for women was about unchanged from the prior survey. Displaced men were less likely than displaced women to be unemployed at the time of the survey in January 2012. The share of displaced men who had left the labor force, at 16 percent, continued to be lower than that for women—20 percent.

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In January 2012, the reemployment rates for long-tenured displaced Whites (57 percent), Hispanics (55 percent), and Asians (60 percent) were higher than in January 2010. The reemployment rate for Blacks was little changed at 46 percent in January 2012.

These data are from the Current Population Survey. For more information, see "Worker Displacement: 2009–2011" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL-12-1719. Displaced workers are defined as persons 20 years of age and older who had 3 or more years of tenure on a job they lost or left because their plant or company closed or moved, there was insufficient work for them to do, or their position or shift was abolished. The period covered in this study was 2009–2011.

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