Wall Street Journal (01/18/12) Murrray, Sara; McWhirter, Cameron

While the job market is improving, long-term unemployment continues to be particularly pronounced, and there is little indication that it is falling quickly. The government reported in December that 3.9 million nationwide had been out of work for at least a year and were still looking.

Some will eventually find jobs, though long spells of unemployment are likely to scar them for years. Workers who were jobless for six months or more in the late 1990s and early 2000s in Connecticut and eventually found work earned 60% less than those who were unemployed for three months or less, according to economists Kenneth Couch of the University of Connecticut and Dana Placzek of the state labor department. Workers who had been unemployed for less than five weeks in 2010 had a 34% chance of finding a job the following month, according to U.S. Department of Labor data, while those out more than six months had only a 10% chance.

The article examines the impact of these developments on the town of Roswell, GA. Applications and placements at staffing firm Hire Dynamics LLC, which has six Georgia locations including one near Roswell, were up 40% last year, says chief executive Dan Campbell.