As recently as 1990, one out of six unemployed workers had left their jobs voluntarily. One reason for the relative decline in the number of voluntary job leavers is that as the population and workforce gets older, workers are more likely to stay with the same employer rather than risk losing retirement benefits as well as current income. Highly visible re-entrants to the labor force are women with previous work experience who had left the labor force for family reasons and who later return to the job market. The loss of a job by a family's primary wage earner often results in the re-entry of other family members into the job market. For the most part, new entrants into the labor force are concentrated among teenagers and those in the 20-21 year age range who may have just left school.
New entrants account for about five to ten percent of the unemployed.
Long ago, the U.S. Department of Labor decided to classify people by their actions, rather than their desires. There are probably as many personal reasons for unemployment as there are people unemployed. For a farming and wood products area such as the Willamette Valley, seasonal unemployment, which results from normal seasonal patterns, will cause unemployment benefit checks to be mailed to thousands of workers. In Marion, Polk, and Yamhill counties, there are more than 20,000 persons employed in industries with significant seasonal unemployment. Other industries experience lesser seasonal patterns, but still contribute to seasonal unemployment.