Unemployment Exits Before and During the Crisis

Using administrative data from Spanish Social Security, we compare the pattern and the determinants of individual unemployment durations and the stability of jobs found after unemployment before and during the recent crisis. We find particularly strong effects of the crisis on the hazards in the beginning of the unemployment spell. The groups hit hardest by the crisis are men, immigrants, older workers, and individuals with lower levels of education. The disadvantage of men is mainly due to the more pro-cyclical nature of men's jobs. Decompositions show that the increase in average unemployment duration and the decrease in average duration of the new job during the crisis are not explained by changing characteristics of the individuals who become unemployed.