Long-Term Unemployed Face Uphill Battle [AUDIO]

Shocking statistics if you’re one of the 400,000 New Jerseyans out of work.

Economists say about three in ten find a job in the first few months of being laid off. It gets worse – after a year of being unemployed, the chances of landing a job fall to just one in ten per month.

“Those who lost their jobs, particularly those who lost them at the outset of the downturn, are very often looking for work in sectors of the economy that have yet to rebound” said Pat O’Keefe, economic analyst at J.H. Cohn in Roseland.

“We see that in the construction industry, for example, where their skills are not as much in demand as they were earlier.”

He also points to the number of jobs that have disappeared in recent years across the nation and in New Jersey.

“We don’t have the same number of jobs that we had in 2008 and so there are more people out of work that are fighting for fewer positions.”

That’s why he said its important for job seekers to brush up on their skills.

“Maybe by getting some preferred training in their occupational field or taking an entry level job that allows them to showcase their skills to an employer. For many of them simply more training and more education may be the ticket to a job in the future.”

12.7 million Americans are unemployed with 5 and a half million of them long-term unemployed.