This AARP Public Policy Institute fact sheet highlights the employment situation for older persons as of May 2012. At 6.5 percent, the May unemployment rate for persons aged 55 and older was somewhat higher than April’s 6.3 percent but below its most recent high of 7.3 percent in August 2010.
Just over 2 million older people were out of work and looking for a job in May. Average duration of unemployment among older jobseekers was 56 weeks in May; the percentage of long-term unemployed remained high at 55 weeks, far higher than it had been at the start of the Great Recession.
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