ECONOMY - So, Why the Job Market Slow Recovery?

"Economists Earn Nobel Prize for Asking How Job Market Works"
PBS Newshour 10/11/2010

From transcript

CATHERINE RAMPELL, The New York Times: Basically, that refers to research about markets where buyers and sellers don't automatically find each other.

And that really refers to almost all markets, except for things like commodities. So, in the job market, that means, why does it take so long for people who are unemployed to find jobs, even when there are job openings available?

JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): All right, so that's a particularly relevant question right now. What -- tell us what the research suggests about the situation as these economists studied it, but also as it applies to what we're looking at now.

CATHERINE RAMPELL: Well, basically, they were interested in, again, why does it take so long for people to be matched to jobs?

And their conclusion had a lot to do with the fact that people are not interchangeable units. You know, different people have different skills. They have different weaknesses. They have different strengths. And jobs, for that matter, are also not identical, cookie-cutter things.

So, what happens is, it takes time for the right person to be matched to the right job. And, beyond that, there are government policies that at times can make the search process less efficient.

So, when we're talking about what's going on now, a lot of that has to do with the demand picture, but it can also have are to do with the fact that it takes time for people to be matched to the right job, because they're unwilling to move, if their house is underwater, for example.