Duration of unemployment, 2006
December 27, 2007
Overall, 14.4 million persons experienced some unemployment in 2006, essentially unchanged from 2005. The number of persons that experienced some unemployment during the year was down by 2.4 million from its recent high of 16.8 million in 2002.
[Chart data—TXT]
About 450,000 persons worked year round with unemployment lasting only 1 or 2 weeks.
Of the 12.1 million persons who worked during part of the year and also experienced some unemployment, about 4.7 million were unemployed for periods ranging from 1 to 10 weeks. About 4.8 million were unemployed for periods ranging from 11 to 26 weeks. The remaining 2.6 million individuals were unemployed for 27 weeks or longer.
About 1.9 million individuals had looked for a job but did not work at all in 2006. Of these, 1.1 million looked for a job for 15 weeks or longer.
Among those who experienced unemployment in 2006, the median number of weeks spent looking for work was 13.8, down from 14.6 in 2005.
These data are from the Current Population Survey. To learn more, see "Work Experience of the Population in 2006," (PDF) (TXT) USDL news release 07-1923.
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