Long-Term Unemployed Share (27+ Weeks)

A month earlier, in July 2026, the share was 25.5%, little changed.

Someone is unemployed in this survey if they had no job in the survey week, were available to work, and looked for work in the past four weeks, or were waiting to be recalled from a temporary layoff. Duration counts the weeks of the current spell of looking, so it measures spells still under way, not how long it takes to find a job. People who want a job but have stopped looking are outside the count, and receiving unemployment benefits plays no part in it.

The share is seasonally adjusted, which removes the usual swings of the calendar. It rests on a sample of the unemployed, a small group in the survey, so it is noisy from month to month. By our estimate a one-month change needs to exceed about 2 percentage points (points on the percent scale, not a percent of the share) to stand out from sampling error. Smaller moves are described here as little changed. BLS also revises the last five years of seasonally adjusted values each January, and those revisions have changed a month's value by up to 2 points.

Comparisons on this page start in 1994. That January BLS redesigned the survey questionnaire, and its researchers found the change affected how long people reported being unemployed. The survey did not run in October 2025, during the federal government shutdown. In November 2025 every jobseeker was asked their duration afresh rather than having it carried forward, so the September-to-November move spans two months and a change in method.

The Unemployment Rate says how many people are looking for work; this share says how many of them have been looking for six months or more. Continued Unemployment Claims counts people collecting benefits, a different group from a different source, and U-6 Underemployment adds people the headline rate leaves out.