Long-Term Unemployment Reaches 25.9% as U.S. Hiring Slows

The clearest strain in the U.S. labor market is showing up in how long people remain without work. During the first seven months of 2026, 25.9% of unemployed Americans had been out of work for at least 27 weeks, up from 18.9% in 2023. The number of people in that position rose from 1.1 million to 1.9 million, a 68% increase.

The figures come from an analysis of 23 federal data sets commissioned by MyPerfectResume. They point to a labor market where layoffs remain comparatively low, but finding a new job appears to be taking longer. That difference matters: a low rate of job losses can coexist with mounting difficulty for people already searching.

Searches are lasting longer

Both the median and average time spent unemployed increased between 2023 and 2026. Median duration reached 11.1 weeks, compared with 8.9 weeks in 2023. The average climbed to 25.1 weeks from 20.4 weeks. The gap between those measures shows that the average experience is being pulled higher by people whose searches last substantially longer than the median.

The 25.9% share covers the first seven months of 2026. In May, nearly 2 million Americans had been unemployed for at least 27 weeks. Those measures describe related but distinct views of the job search: one tracks the share of unemployed people reaching a long spell, while the other records the duration of unemployment across the broader group.

Dr. Jasmine Escalera, Career Expert at MyPerfectResume, said: “Low layoffs can make the job market look stable, but that does not tell the full story for people who are already out of work. More unemployed Americans are spending months looking for work at the same time employers are hiring at a slower pace.”

Fewer openings and hires, without a jump in layoffs

Employer measures help explain the mixed picture. From 2023 to 2026, the hiring rate fell from 3.8% to 3.3%, while the job openings rate dropped from 5.8% to 4.4%. The quits rate also declined, from 2.4% to 2.0%. Hiring and quits reached their lowest rates in the 11 years covered by the analysis.

Layoffs held at 1.1% over the period and remained below their pre-pandemic rate. That steadiness may cushion workers who already have jobs, but it does little by itself to shorten the search for people who are out of work. With fewer openings and a slower pace of hiring, job seekers can face more competition for available roles even when employers aren’t shedding workers at an unusually fast rate.

The figures show slower hiring and longer unemployment occurring together; they don’t establish that one caused the other. The mix also makes a single headline measure of labor-market strength less revealing. Layoffs describe workers leaving jobs involuntarily, while hiring and openings offer clues about the chances of moving into new work. Here, the first measure stayed flat as the latter two weakened.

Prime-age participation remains high

Adults ages 25–54 continued to take part in the labor market at a high rate. In 2026, 83.7% of this group were working or looking for work, the highest participation rate in the study. The increase in long-term unemployment therefore sits alongside substantial engagement among prime-age adults, rather than a broad retreat from work or job search.

Unemployment rates were higher than in 2019 for several groups. Among adults ages 25–34, the rate reached 4.7%, compared with 3.8% in 2019. For those ages 25–54, it was 3.7%, up from 3.1%. Among people ages 20–24, it reached 7.1%, versus 6.9%. For people age 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree or higher, unemployment was 2.8%, compared with 2.2%.

The increase for adults ages 25–34 was the largest among the age groups studied. The rise among degree holders also shows that the pressure described in the analysis extends across education levels, though the rates differ substantially by group.

What the figures leave to watch

For employers, workers and businesses that depend on household income, the distinction between low layoffs and weak hiring is consequential. Workers who remain employed may see fewer signs of immediate disruption, while people seeking work face longer spells and fewer openings. Longer searches can also mean households spend more time without earnings from a job; the analysis does not quantify the resulting financial effects.

The next useful signals are whether hiring and job openings stabilize, whether unemployment duration continues to rise, and whether the long-term share keeps climbing beyond the first seven months of 2026. The available figures establish a shift since 2023, but don’t show how persistent it will be. The underlying analysis is available in MyPerfectResume’s Long-Term Unemployment report.