Long-term unemployment mixed in July
The number of workers who have been unemployed for at least 27 weeks declined by about 100,000 in July. However, the average stay on unemployment rose to a new high: 40.4 weeks.
This chart shows the number of people who have been unemployed for at least 27 weeks, starting in 2000. The number now is about three times as high as it was at the peak following the 2001 recession.
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Today's employment situation report showed that conditions for the longterm unemployed went mixed in July while remaining epically distressed by historic standards.
Workers unemployed 27 weeks or more declined to 6.18 million or 44.4% of all unemployed workers while the median number of weeks unemployed declined to 21.2 weeks and the average stay on unemployment jumped to 40.4 weeks, a new high for the series.
Looking at the charts below (click for super interactive versions) you can see that today’s sorry situation far exceeds even the conditions seen during the double-dip recessionary period of the early 1980s, long considered by economists to be the worst period of unemployment since the Great Depression.
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