Displaced workers are adults ages 20 and older who lost or left jobs because their employer closed or moved, lacked sufficient work, or abolished their position or shift.

Eight million workers—one in sixteen working Americans—joined the ranks of the displaced between January 1995 and December 1997. Of those, fewer than half (3.6 million) were long-tenured workers who had been with their employers three or more years. Of the long-tenured workers, women were slightly more likely to be displaced than men, though men represented a bare majority—53 percent—of the displaced. Displacement hits workers regardless of their race; the proportions of displaced blacks and Hispanics were roughly equal to their representation in the total workforce.

The jobs from which workers were displaced changed dramatically over time. In the early 1980s, nearly half of all displaced workers had lost a manufacturing job. By the mid-1990s, this proportion dropped to roughly one in four. Other industries saw significant increases in displacement rates over the same period. About one in four displaced workers had lost a job in the services, trade, finance, insurance, or real estate industries in the early 1980s; by the mid-1990s, one in two displaced workers had lost a job in those industries.

The oldest displaced workers were the least likely to find new jobs. Only about one in three displaced workers 65 or older had found a new job by February 1998. By contrast, new jobs had been found by over eight in ten workers 25 to 54 years of age and by six in ten workers 55 to 64 years of age.

Because a worker can be displaced from his or her job at any age, or from any industry, there is a lifelong need to continue learning in order to reduce the likelihood of displacement and to improve job prospects if displaced.