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About 1.4 million unemployed persons had been jobless for at least 27 weeks at the end of 2005, a decrease of 317,000 over the year.
These long-term unemployed persons made up 18.6 percent of total unemployment in the last quarter of 2005, down from 21.2 percent at the end of 2004.
The average duration of unemployment in the fourth quarter of 2005, at 17.7 weeks, also was lower than a year earlier. In the last quarter of 2004, the average duration was 19.6 weeks.
These data are from the Current Population Survey. Find more information in "Lower unemployment in 2005," by Emy Sok, Monthly Labor Review, March 2006.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, Duration of unemployment in 2005 at https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2006/apr/wk1/art02.htm (visited October 31, 2024).