Americans who lose their jobs these days are facing a harsh new problem: It’s getting harder to find another one quickly.
The average jobless worker’s bout of unemployment surpassed 27 weeks in October on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to Friday’s jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics
That amounts to a job search of nearly seven months, the longest outside of the pandemic period since 2016, when the U.S. labor market was finally getting back on track after the 2008 financial crisis. About 2 million Americans have been without work for at least 27 weeks, the BLS reported. People in this category are referred to as the “long-term unemployed” and accounted for 27.6% of all jobless workers in October, the highest share since late 2021. “This is a series that can be noisy from month to month,” said Cory Stahle, senior economist at Indeed, a hiring platform. “But if you look over a longer time horizon, there is no mistake in the trend.” It’s a troubling sign in an otherwise steady labor market.
Workers stuck on the sidelines are a casualty of what’s become a “low-hire, low-fire” job market, in which companies are hesitant to lay workers off, but aren’t adding them either. Research shows that Americans who experience long-term unemployment face depleted savings, lower earnings potential over time and declining mental health. What’s more, workers who are unemployed for extended periods risk falling into a self-perpetuating cycle, researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond wrote earlier this year. “Time spent unemployed may itself reduce the probability of finding a job, perhaps because skills depreciate, networks thin or employers interpret long unemployment durations as a negative signal,” the researchers warned.