The Government should establish an early-warning "profiling" system for people most likely to become long-term unemployed, according to a new report for the Combat Poverty Agency.
It says such a system, based on national sampling of unemployed people, could identify "key indicators" when workers are being laid off of those most likely to remain on the dole.
The report, a copy of which has been seen by The Irish Times, tracks the experiences of unemployed people between 1994 and 1998.
It found that even during the jobs boom there were groups at high risk of remaining out of work.
The director of Combat Poverty, Ms Helen Johnston, said yesterday that after years of high jobs growth unemployment was rising again, and the profiling system suggested ways of helping those most at risk of long-term unemployment at an early stage.
The report, by Mr Richard Layte and Mr Philip O'Connor of the Economic and Social Research Institute, shows that many more people experience unemployment than the "snapshots" provided by the monthly live register figures and other indicators.
"Over the five or so years in our analysis, over a third of all men, and one-fifth of all women, experienced some unemployment," they write.
The report found that older male workers, women with child-rearing responsibilities and early school-leavers with poor educational levels were most at risk.
While most of these findings are not unexpected, this is the first time the fortunes of individual unemployed people have been followed over such a long period.
It shows some significant variations in the overall pattern, for example, that long-term unemployed people who obtained jobs were more likely to keep them than the short-term unemployed.
While the mobility in the employment market indicated "a reasonably well-functioning labour market", the authors found there was a substantial minority of individuals for whom the labour market was much less favourable.