This study is the first attempt to study various factors which cause some people to experience longer unemployment spells than others in Bosnia and Herzegovina, using the four waves of Living Standards Measurement Study survey (2001-2004). The analyses are carried out by using non- parametric and semi- parametric methods. We find that social insurance system has a significant negative effect on the hazard into employment, in particular for the least educated unemployed people. There is evidence of duration dependence, with a period of positive duration in the first 12 months, followed by a declining hazard until approximately 30 months. These results remain robust to the introduction of a gamma-distributed unobserved heterogeneity.