Long-Term Unemployed Now Make Up 46% Of Unemployed, Highest Percentage On Record

If you lose your job nowadays, it’s worth hurrying to find another one fast.

The percentage of people unemployed for six months or more now makes up 46% of the unemployed, The Associated Press has reported. That’s the highest percentage on records going back to 1948. By late summer or early fall, they are expected to make up half of all unemployed Americans.

Economists say that those who are jobless for six months or more risk becoming less and less employable. Their skills can erode, their confidence falters, and their contacts dry up. In addition, their increasing ranks will keep pressure on Congress to keep extending unemployment benefits, which now run for up to 99 weeks.

The economy has created a net 982,000 jobs this year. But for Jeff Martinez and the record 6.76 million others who have struck out for six months or longer, their struggles are getting worse.

40-year-old Martinez, a salesman in Washington, DC, has logged over 200 interviews since 2007. Dressed in a dark navy suit and Burberry tie, he projects drive and a zest for dealmaking. And yet the most urgent deal of his career, which is landing a job, eludes him.

“You have days where you feel motivated and hopeful and optimistic,” he says. “Then there are other days, you really lose the faith and think, ‘I’m never going to get another job. Ever.’”

Since the recession started in December of 2007, a net 7.4 million jobs have vanished. The unemployment rate has surged almost 5 percentage points from 5% in December of 2007 to 9.7% in May.

In the last severe recession, the rate increased less sharply throughout a shorter period from 7.2% in July of 1981 to 10.8% at the end of 1982.

Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, points to the “sheer scale of the falloff in demand for workers” this time. It has left more people unemployed for longer stretches. And it has intensified competition for each vacancy.

“It’s a cruel game of musical chairs,” he says.

To reduce the unemployment rate from 9.7% to a more normal 6% would require approximately a net 15 million new jobs by the end of 2016, estimates Brian Bethune, chief US financial economist at IHS Global Insight.

30-year-old Stephan Azor is looking for information technology work, perhaps overseeing a company’s computer system. He was laid off eight months back as a system administrator for a defense contractor.

“Technology changes every six months. So there are things I have to look up and learn,” he says.

Other reasons for the increasing percentage of the long-term unemployed are as follows:

_ Jobs eliminated by the Great Recession that aren’t returning. In industries, such as home construction, manufacturing, and retail, fewer workers will be needed even after the economy has completely recovered due to higher productivity. Companies have been able to produce the same amount of goods or services with fewer workers.

_ The breadth of the downturn has struck every region of the country, making it more difficult for jobseekers to move to another area in the hopes of landing a job. Moreover, the housing bust has made it harder for people to sell their homes and move elsewhere to take a job, according to economists.

A study by the National Employment Law Project found that older workers (45 and up) make up the largest slice of the long-term unemployed. African Americans make up 20.8%. And men account for six out of 10.

Martinez was living in Los Angeles and making $200,000 a year in his media sales job. In 2007, he lost it.

He had to move back in with his parents in Sterling, Virginia. Two years ago, at the height of the financial meltdown, he found another media sales job in the region. He was laid off a month later.

Martinez has sent out 2,500 resumes in the past year. He has researched prospective employers and penned personalized cover letters. He encountered a dry spell at the beginning of this year. Since then, the job situation seems to have improved and he’s interviewing again.

“It’s tough not to have an interview, and it’s just as tough to go on five or six or seven interviews and not get hired,” he says.