Long-term unemployment has been increasing across all population groups, although to varying degrees, and closely reflects underlying developments in overall unemployment. As the effects of the crisis caused more severe increases of unemployment among the already most disadvantaged groups, this has aggravated the risk of long-term unemployment among youth, non-EU migrants and the low-skilled, while long-term unemployment also increased relatively more for men and young adults (25-34) as well as for mobile EU citizens residing in other EU countries (other-EU nationals). The rise in long-term unemployment affected all population segments significantly more strongly in the second year of the labour market downturn, reflecting the lag with which the marked increase in unemployment fed through into long-term unemployment (Chart 58).
In line with the developments in unemployment over the two years to the second quarter of 2010, the long-term unemployment rate increased more for men than for women (by 1.4 percentage points for men and 0.8 percentage points for women). With respect to age, the long-term unemployment rate increased most significantly over the two years (by 2.3 percentage points) for youth, climbing to a substantial 5.9%, and for young adults aged 25-34 (up by around 1.6 percentage points), whose rate (at 4.0% in the second quarter) has in the last year exceeded that for older people aged 55-64 (3.3% in 2010q2). In terms of skill levels, between the second quarter of 2008 and the second quarter of 2010 the rate increased most for the low-skilled (up 2.6 percentage points), including a steep surge of 3.8 percentage points for low-skilled youth (who, in contrast to other population segments, already experienced a sharp rise in the first year of the downturn), and a 2.4 percentage point jump for low-skilled adults. These rises compare to much lower increases of 0.9 percentage points for the medium-skilled and only 0.5 percentage points for the high-skilled. The rate for low-skilled has now reached 6.9%, while for the medium-skilled it is at 3.4% and for the high-skilled at 1.6%. In terms of nationality, over the two years the long-term unemployment rate increased most substantially (by 3.1 percentage points) for third country migrants (to 7.8%) and by 1.5 percentage points for mobile EU citizens (to 3.9%), whose rate is now slightly higher than that for nationals (3.6%).