The trend highlights a considerable challenge for the economy and policymakers: finding a way for the millions of Americans laid off last fall and early this year to get back to work.
The data, buried in Friday's unemployment report, are stark: The number of Americans out of work for 27 weeks or more reached 5.9 million last month, the most on records dating from 1948. That's 18 percent more than just three months ago, when the total was just below 5 million.
The tally of those out of work for 14 weeks or less, however, has dropped to 6.3 million from 7.1 million in August, a decline of about 11 percent.Looking at it another way, the long-term jobless now make up 38.3 percent of the unemployed population, not that far from the 41.1 percent accounted for by those out of work for 14 weeks or less. (The rest are in the 15-to-26 weeks bracket.)
That's a sharp change from August, when the short-term unemployed made up nearly half the total, while the longer-term jobless were only a third.
In some ways, the dichotomy is good news, in that it reflects a slowdown in layoffs. The Labor Department said Friday that employers cut a net total of 11,000 jobs in November, down from 111,000 the previous month. The unemployment rate dropped to 10 percent from 10.2 percent in October, the first decline since July.
That gives analysts hope the economy could begin generating jobs in the next few months, after shedding 7.2 million in the past two years.
Still, "new hiring may not be picking up all that much," said Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank. "So what you're seeing is less people thrown into unemployment."
And without more jobs, the long-term unemployment problem is likely to linger. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has expressed concern that people caught in long spells of unemployment could see their skills atrophy.
"It really is the most difficult challenge facing us," he said in testimony to a Senate panel Thursday.Here, by the numbers, are some more details you can find deep in the employment report.
Less than zero, but getting closer
- 11,000: The net total of jobs lost in November
- 111,000: Jobs lost in October
- 139,000: Jobs lost in September
- 691,000: Average monthly loss in first three months of this year
- 7.2 million: Total decline in U.S. payrolls since recession began in December 2007
Unemployment still high
- 10 percent: November's unemployment rate, in double digits for only the second time in 26 years
- 10.2 percent: October's jobless rate, the highest since April 1983
- 10.8 percent: Unemployment rate in December 1982, the highest since World War II
Where the jobs are
- 52,400: The number of temporary jobs added in November, the biggest increase in five years
- 11,100: Jobs added in education
- 21,000: Jobs added in hospitals, nursing and other health care sectors
- 1,000: Jobs added in computer services
- 5,600: Jobs added in management and technical consulting
- 7,500: Jobs added in department stores
Underemployed
- 9.2 million: Number of part-time workers who would have preferred full-time work last month
- 2.3 million: People without jobs who want to work but have stopped looking
- 17.2 percent: "Underemployment" rate in November if you include the above two categories
- 17.5 percent: Underemployment rate in October, the highest in records dating to 1994
The 'he-cession'
- 10.5 percent: Unemployment rate for adult men
- 7.9 percent: Unemployment rate for adult women
November unemployment rate by group
- 11.4 percent: Female heads of households
- 7.3 percent: Asians
- 9.3 percent: Whites
- 12.7 percent: Hispanics
- 15.6 percent: Blacks
- 26.7 percent: Teenagers
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