Do you have statistics on how often you've hired long-term out-of-work people and the frequency of said people to be sub-par employees?

For what little it's worth: I can think of 6 colleagues who have been, or are currently, long-term unemployed. I personally wouldn't have hire any of them, had it been my decision. I'm glad it wasn't. Two of them were among our best hires ever. The other four didn't work out so well.

Still, that's quite a high "hidden gem" rate.