It’s not enough that Americans are saying the economy is in the doldrums and their paychecks are not keeping up with inflation. It’s also that if the paycheck stops coming, there’s a diminished chance of finding a new one anytime soon.
“A disturbing employment trend is hiding beneath the latest strong job numbers,” reports CNBC. “Americans who lose their jobs these days are facing a harsh new problem: It’s getting harder to find another one quickly.”
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Friday jobs report, the average jobless worker’s bout of unemployment surpassed 27 weeks in October on a seasonally adjusted basis. That’s the same as a job search lasting nearly seven months. This is moving into the 12-month realm of a whole year, and CNBC says it’s “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,” reports CNBC, citing the BLS report. “People in this category are referred to as the ‘long-term unemployed’ and accounted for 27.6 percent of all jobless workers in October, the highest share since late 2021.”
“…[T]here is no mistake in the trend,” said Cory Stahle, senior economist at hiring platform Indeed.
Workers stuck on the sidelines are a casualty of Trump’s ‘low-hire, low-fire’ job market, in which “companies are hesitant to lay workers off, but aren’t adding them either,” said CNBC. “Research shows that Americans who experience long-term unemployment face depleted savings, lower earnings potential over time and declining mental health.
Worse, former employees who are unemployed for extended periods risk falling into a “self-perpetuating cycle,” according to Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond researchers.
“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.
Seven months off the workforce also marks the jarring time when workers stop being able to claim most — if not all — of their government unemployment benefits, which generally end after 26 weeks in a year.
“Now, the average unemployed person takes longer to find a job than their benefits would last,” said Stahle. “That is a really key point of this.
Add to this the highly publicized reports that Disney is removing thousands of jobs, as well as news of further layoffs at American Express, and it becomes clear why workers are picking up a soured feeling about the Trump economy.
