A boring idea on non-demand deficient unemployment by Arnold Kling.

Arnold Kling goes to great lengths to make the obvious point that a faster than usual pace of change can contribute to a higher than usual level of unemployment. The change can be changing technology and/or a change in the pattern of demand for goods and services, which in turn implies a change in the pattern of demand for different skills. E.g. here.

Yes, well anyone with a brain tumbled to this possibility early on in the recession. Some of them looked at what was happening to construction workers made redundant, since the latter type of employees (together with those employed in organising mortgages, etc) were badly hit by the recession.

Well the evidence seems to be that construction workers are finding no more difficulty in finding alternative employment than other groups. E.g see charts on p.8 here, and see last bar chart here.

The latter evidence does not DISPROVE the idea that a faster than usual pace of change is contributing to current elevated unemployment levels. But it casts a bit of doubt on it.

If the likes of Kling spend time producing EVIDENCE that a faster than usual pace of change is contributing to current elevated unemployment levels, then that is time well spent.

As for the simple banal point that a faster than usual pace of change can raise unemployment, it is fair enough to make that point in an introductory economics text book. But it’s not exactly the revelation of the century.

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