US / Long-Term Unemployment Persists

Long-term unemployment remains a very dark shadow in the May jobs report: 4.4 million workers have been out of a job for more than six months. In essence, the job market has normalized for the short-term unemployed. But the longer you have been out of a job, the bleaker the picture gets.

The number of people who report being out of work for less than five weeks has returned to almost the same level as in 2007. But the number of people unemployed 5 to 14 weeks is about 25 percent higher. For those out of a job 15 to 26 weeks, it is 78 percent higher. And the number of long-term jobless, those unemployed for more than 27 weeks, is a whopping 257 percent higher.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor

via Long-Term Jobless: Still a Bleak Picture – NYTimes.com.