Early Identification of the Long-Term Unemployed

Clive Payne and Joan Payne

The paper describes a feasibility study carried out for the Employment Service and the Department for Education and Employment in Britain to identify those individuals who, when first registering as unemployed, are likely to be at high risk of becoming long-term unemployed. A simple prediction scheme is developed that can be easily administered by officials who deal with unemployment registration. The scheme is based on a logistic model for the odds of long-term employment which is calibrated and cross-validated on a national cohort study containing data on employment histories. The paper concludes with a discussion of the effects of the decision rules that are chosen and of the prediction errors that arise when the prediction scheme is applied in practice.

ISBN 0 85374 782 2
PSI Report No 874
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