Why Long-Term Unemployment Is Rising Without a Recession

When Jeremy Spiegel was looking for work in 2009, it was clear why finding a job might be difficult: it was the depths of the Great Recession.

But when he lost his director role at a publishing company in 2024, there was no recession to blame. Spiegel, who’s in his 40s and lives in Massachusetts, has spent two years looking for work — despite having more than twenty years of experience.

“I’ve been told so many times a version of ‘It’s not you, it’s us’ that I am beginning to wonder if it is, in fact, me,” Spiegel said.

He said others have struggled to understand how someone with his background could be out of work for so long. Had he offended someone at the companies where he was applying? one family member wondered. Spiegel said he sometimes avoids social events because he fears he’ll have to talk about his job search.

More than a million Americans have been unemployed for at least 27 weeks. While the unemployment rate remains low by historical standards, the share of unemployed Americans who have been out of work for that long has risen considerably since early 2023.

This isn’t normal. Historically, when such a large proportion of unemployed Americans have been without work for this long, the unemployment rate has also been elevated, and the US economy is either in or coming out of a recession.

Without such a clear explanation to turn to, many long-term job seekers told Business Insider they’ve searched for answers about what’s holding them back — whether AI and government policy or age discrimination and ghost jobs.

Ofer Sharone, a sociologist at UMass Amherst who studies long-term unemployment, said when job seekers don’t have a clear external explanation for why they can’t find work, they’re more likely to wonder whether something is wrong with them. That self-blame can take a toll on their mental health and make it harder to maintain the confidence needed to keep searching.

“A recession is ironic in that it is a time when finding work is hardest, but also, it is when the stigma of being unemployed is lessened,” he said.

Business Insider is speaking with workers who’ve found themselves at a corporate crossroads — whether due to a layoff, resignation, job search, or shifting workplace expectations.

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Is it the job market — or me?

After Jon McCarty lost his software engineering job in 2022, he spent 18 months struggling to find another one. He eventually pivoted to handyman work and now works as a part-time cashier at Home Depot.

“I started coming to grips with the idea that I will probably never get another software job,” said McCarty, who’s in his early 60s and lives in Virginia.

McCarty said he’d sometimes made it through phone and technical interviews only to be rejected after a video interview. As the rejections piled up, he began to suspect that his age was hurting his chances. It was one way to make sense of why he kept getting rejected.

“Is this just a perception I’ve created to make myself feel better about not getting a job? I’m not sure,” he said.

Sharone said that hope is critical for long-term unemployed jobseekers because their search is a marathon and not a sprint. “When there is high uncertainty about the causes of the difficulties, it is difficult to maintain this level of hope,” he said.

Finding a way out

For people who have already spent months or years searching for work, having an explanation for their difficult job search ultimately matters less than finding a way out of it.

In the months and years ahead, economic uncertainty could fade and give companies more confidence to hire. The hiring pullback that followed the pandemic-era hiring spree could eventually run its course. Or the US could enter a recession — potentially making an already difficult hiring landscape even worse.

Even in today’s difficult job market, some long-term job seekers are managing to break through. But leaving the ranks of the unemployed doesn’t always mean the job search ended the way they hoped. Some have given up looking for work altogether, while others have taken jobs that pay considerably less than their previous roles.

When Kymberly McClain resigned from her deputy director role at a small nonprofit in 2024, she was confident she’d quickly find another job. But as months passed without an offer, she began questioning what about her might explain the rejection. Was it her race? Her age? Her lack of a college degree? She even wondered whether she’d somehow ended up on a “do-not-hire list.”

Nearly two years after her job search began, McClain recently landed a full-time customer-service job at a call center. She said she’s making roughly half what she earned in her previous role, but after so much rejection, simply getting an offer helped put at least one of her fears to rest.

“I’m just excited that somebody said yes,” she said. “I was like, okay, I’m not blackballed from the job market.”

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