Education, Deprivation, Hysterisis, Unemployment.

Traditionally, Economists tought of high unemployment as a cyclical phenomenon; unemployment would eventually moderate wage demands and thereby open up new employment opportunities. Hysterisis suggests however that workers who become long term unemployed find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to break back into the labour market. We argue that hysterisis is bound up with the strong shift in demand away from poorly skilled workers that has occured in recent decades.