Long Term Unemployed

It's gotten to the point where "job seeker" can be a synonym for "discouraged." How are you supposed to overcome the competition to land an appropriate job? Especially if it's been a long time since you've had to look for a position, you have a lot of obstacles to overcome. You know it's futile to sit around and ...

The average unemployed American now spends 35 weeks job-hunting, an amount almost double what it's been at any point before the Great Recession. And one thing that everyone agrees on: Even though more and more companies are hiring, people who have been unemployed for six months or more aren't getting those ...

By Tami Luhby NEW YORK -- The average time Americans spent unemployed dropped a record 2.8 weeks in January ... but hold the applause. The reason is likely because many people ran out of unemployment benefits so they stopped looking for work, experts said. ...

By Richard Eisenberg Although things seem to be looking up on the jobs front (claims for state unemployment benefits just fell to their lowest level since January 2008), the same can't be said for America's long-term unemployed, especially those over 50. ...

You've heard the statistics: Managers prefer to hire people who already have jobs. The long-term unemployed face steep odds. Some 5.4 million people have been out of work for more than six months, and after about a year of being out of work, their chances of getting a job drop to 1 in 10 per month. ...

In the couple of months since my blog about unemployment has been running on AOL Jobs, I've heard from many people, both across the U.S. and around the world, who are dealing with the unique and sometimes painful challenges of unemployment. A lot of us feel very isolated in what we're experiencing, so ...

By Vivian Giang The longer you're unemployed, the less valuable you may seem to a hiring manager. In her post on AARP.org, Diane Cadrain, a Connecticut-based attorney, writes about how some companies are going as far as placing employment ads that specifically screen applicants based on current ...

There's a powerlessness that comes with long-term unemployment. I think of it as a quiet desperation, an urgent need to find work coupled with a frustrating inability to make that happen. The unemployment rate has been above 8 percent for so long -- 3½ years! -- that you might forget that only a few ...

Maryland has joined a growing list of states considering legislation to protect the unemployed. Legislators there are weighing a bill that would prevent employers from limiting applications for open positions to only those currently holding jobs. Advocates nationwide argue that such laws are needed given the ...