For Workers Who Find Jobs, Lower Wages

(Wall Street Journal) - Of the 6.9 million U.S. workers who lost jobs during the recession that they had held for at least three years, only about half were reemployed by January 2010 -- and 55 percent of those who did find work were earning less than before.

The findings, released Thursday, were part of the Labor Department’s report on worker displacement from 2007 to 2009. The report highlighted the lasting effects of the latest economic downturn.

Not only is unemployment likely to remain high, but those workers who do manage to find jobs are often coping with lower salaries.

’We have found that these earnings losses stick to these workers for a while,’ said Till Marco von Wachter, a Columbia University economist who has studied the long-term salary effects of job displacement.

Read more: Wall Street Journal