Abstract

Abstract- This paper examines the average length of a spell of unemployment in the Irish Republic. The analysis is conducted using two measures, one emphasising the flow of persons into unemployment and the other concentrating on the stock of currently unemployed individuals. These measures imply long average durations for the unemployed in Ireland both in absolute terms and relative to their British counterparts. Some of the traditional structural aspects of Irish unemployment, i.e., the high proportion of unskilled, elderly or regionally disadvantaged persons among the unemployed, provide a partial explanation of these long spell lengths. he unemployment rate is typical ly used as an indicator of labour market X conditions. However, i t is an ambiguous indicator since a given annual average unemployment rate could be consistent bo th w i t h a large number of persons unemployed for short durations and a much smaller number unem ployed for very long periods of t ime. To overcome this ambiguity economists have in recent years focused on the length of a typical spell of unemployment. The measures of the average duration of unemployment which have emerged are the subject of this paper. The next section contains a brief review of the literature on unemployment duration. Section I I I applies the measures of spell length to Irish data and Section I V looks at some additional informat ion on the characteristics of the long-term unemployed.