There’s no shortage of stories and analysis (we recommend Felix Salmon’s take) on the Labor Department’s new jobs report. But beyond what’s being reported, we wanted to highlight a point or two perhaps getting overlooked.
While the 290,000 jobs added to payrolls is a solid number, the duration of unemployment for a large chunk of jobseekers continues to rise. As you can see on the chart below, 45.9% of people seeking work have been jobless for at least 27 weeks — more than half a year. And well over half of those unemployed (61%) have been pursuing employment for 15 weeks or more.
Those numbers come from this BLS table.