The deep recession that began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009, has had a lasting effect on the labor market. More than four and a half years after the end of the recession, employment has risen sluggishly--much more slowly than it grew, on average, during the four previous recoveries...

This paper provides new evidence on the nature of occupational differences in unemployment dynamics, which is relevant for the debate between the structural or hysteresis hypotheses. We develop a procedure that permits us to test for the presence of a structural break at unknown date. Our...