A survey released today shows that people who have criminal records but are holding down a job have an easier time impressing hiring managers than do people who have been out of work for two years or more. The study is by Bullhorn, a Boston maker of recruiting software. The company ran an anonymous survey between August 23-28 of 1,500 staffing recruiters, corporate recruiters and hiring managers who use Bullhorn’s products.

Among other questions, the survey asked respondents to rate, on a scale of one to five, who would be most difficult to place. Forty-four percent said someone who has been unemployed for more than two years would rate a 5, while only 31% said someone with a (non-felony) criminal record would be most difficult the place.

How many people in the U.S. have been out of work for two years? Officially the number is close to 2 million, but it is probably much higher. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts people who have been unemployed for 99 weeks or more; that number totals 1.8 million. But those people are the die-hard job seekers, who report that they have looked for work in the last four weeks. It doesn’t count the many people who, in BLS argot, are “marginally attached to the labor force,” meaning they want to work but have become so discouraged that they have given up the search in the last 4 weeks. There are at least 7 million of those people, though the BLS doesn’t know how long they have been unemployed. My guess is that many of them have been out of work for at least two years.

The rough total number of unemployed or underemployed people right now is 23.1 million. That includes discouraged job seekers, those actively looking for work (12.5 million) and the 8 million people who are working part-time but wish they had full-time jobs. The Bullhorn study suggests it’s far better to take a part-time job than to do no work at all.

Read More http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2012/09/18/new-study-long-term-unemployment-viewed-by-hiring-companies-as-worse-than-a-criminal-record/

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