U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Department of Labor Logo United States Department of Labor
Dot gov

The .gov means it's official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you're on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Unemployment Duration in the Pandemic: A Look at Jobseeker Demographics

Image of a woman in mask leaving an office with a box full of office supplies.
December 2024
Unemployment Duration in the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Look at Jobseeker Demographics

Megan Wilkins

During the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses either closed or reduced their hours and shed employees, causing the number of unemployed people in the United States to rise from 5.7 million in February 2020 to 23.0 million in April 2020. With so many people out of work in 2020 and 2021, job searches took weeks or even months longer than they had prior to the pandemic.

This Spotlight on Statistics examines trends from 2019 to 2023 in median unemployment duration, which reflects incomplete (or still-in-progress) spells of unemployment. This Spotlight also explores how the length of an individual’s job search may vary by demographic characteristics, occupation, geography, and whether the job search was ultimately successful.

Median Duration of Unemployment Rose in the Pandemic

In 2019, jobseekers were unemployed a median of 9.1 weeks. In the following pandemic-affected years, the median duration of unemployment for all U.S. jobseekers was 9.7 weeks in 2020 and rose to 16.5 weeks in 2021. As economic activity resumed and the labor market tightened, this figure declined to 8.7 weeks in 2022. In 2023, the median duration of unemployment was 8.9 weeks.

Larger Share Unemployed Long-Term in the Pandemic

The pandemic’s labor market shock is reflected in the shares of the unemployed population who were seeking jobs over shorter and longer periods of time. In 2019, the largest share of the unemployed were people looking for work less than 5 weeks (34.8 percent), while 21.1 percent of jobseekers had durations of unemployment of 27 weeks and over. Millions of people became unemployed in the early pandemic months of March and April 2020 and then struggled to find work. In 2021, the shares effectively flipped: 24.8 percent of jobseekers looked for work for less than 5 weeks, while 38.7 percent (the largest share) had durations of 27 weeks and over. In 2022 and 2023, the shares of the unemployed in each duration group were similar to those in 2019.

Unemployment Duration Rose Most for Asians

Among the major race and ethnicity groups, the median duration of unemployment in 2021 was longer by about 7 weeks over the pre-pandemic 2019 length for both Whites and Hispanics (who may be of any race), and by about 8 weeks for Blacks. Whites were unemployed a median of 15.6 weeks in 2021, Hispanics were unemployed a median of 15.4 weeks, and Blacks, 19 weeks. The duration rose more sharply for Asians (up by about 12 weeks, to 21.9 weeks) over the period. In 2022, the median duration of unemployment fell for each of the major race and ethnicity groups. These lower durations continued in 2023, with figures little different than those prior to the pandemic.

Length of Job Search Increased with Age

Teenagers (ages 16–19) had a shorter median duration of unemployment than other age groups during the pandemic, with a length of 6.6 weeks in 2020 and 5.8 weeks in 2021. Workers ages 20–24 were unemployed almost 5 weeks longer than their teenage counterparts in 2021. Workers ages 25–34 saw their job searches increase by almost 7 weeks from 2019 to 2021 (rising to 16.6 weeks), while those ages 35–44 and 45–54 had lengths of unemployment over twice as long in 2021 as in 2019. Meanwhile, workers ages 55–64 and 65 and older had durations around 27 weeks in 2021 (more than four times as long as teenagers). In 2022 and 2023, most age groups had durations of unemployment at least as low as in 2019.

Unemployment Duration Increased with Education

Individuals with a bachelor’s degree or higher level of education had a median duration of unemployment about 5 weeks longer than those with less than a high school diploma in 2021 (23.1 weeks compared with 18.0 weeks). High school graduates with no college experienced a median duration of 20.0 weeks in 2021, while those who had some college or an associate degree had a median of 21.5 weeks. In both 2019 (prior to the pandemic) and 2022 (as the labor market recovered) there was less variation in duration of unemployment by education, with a difference of less than 1 week between the most and least educated groups.

In 2021 People With a Disability Were Unemployed 3.6 Weeks Longer Than Those With No Disability

The median unemployment duration for people with a disability and those without a disability was similar in 2020. However, the median duration of unemployment increased in 2021 by 9.3 weeks for those with a disability and 6.6 weeks for those with no disability. Thus, individuals with a disability were jobless a median of 3.6 weeks longer in 2021 than those with no disability. This gap in unemployment duration narrowed in 2022 and 2023, reaching a level similar to that seen in 2019, before the pandemic.

Veteran Status Had Little to No Impact on Unemployment Duration in Pandemic

There was little difference in median unemployment duration between veterans and nonveterans in the years 2019–2023. Both groups experienced an increase of almost 8 weeks duration from 2020 to 2021 (rising to 17.8 weeks for veterans and 17.4 weeks for nonveterans), and a decrease of more than 8 weeks duration in 2022. This is a different trend than the aftermath of the Great Recession in 2011, when veterans had a median unemployment duration 4.4 weeks longer than nonveterans. In 2023, the median length of unemployment for both veterans and nonveterans was 9.2 weeks.

Foreign-Born U.S. Citizens Had Longest Unemployment Duration

Native-born U.S. workers’ median length of unemployment rose from 9.1 weeks in 2019 to 15.8 weeks in 2021. Foreign-born workers’ duration rose more steeply over the period, from 9.7 weeks to 19.8 weeks. However, there was a large variation in unemployment duration among the foreign-born, with those who had become U.S. citizens taking longer to find work than those who were non-U.S. citizens. Foreign-born U.S. citizens had the longest median duration of unemployment, reaching 23.8 weeks in 2021, whereas foreign-born non-U.S. citizens had a duration of 15.3 weeks, similar to that of native-born workers. In 2022, median unemployment duration decreased for all groups, and the difference in duration for foreign-born U.S. citizens and foreign-born non-U.S. citizens narrowed. Median unemployment durations in 2023 were similar to the prior year.

Workers in Management, Professional, and Related Occupations Jobless Longest in 2021

Workers whose last job was in management, professional, and related occupations had a median duration of unemployment of 9.5 weeks in 2019. In 2021, this figure more than doubled to 20.9 weeks. Workers in every other major occupational group also had longer durations of unemployment in 2021 than prior to the pandemic in 2019, rising from medians of less than 10 weeks to more than 15 weeks. In both 2022 and 2023, the median unemployment duration for workers from each of the major occupational groups was again less than 10 weeks.

Median Duration of Unemployment Varied by State

During the pandemic, median unemployment duration was highest in 2021, with a duration of 16.5 weeks nationwide. However, unemployment duration varied by state, with durations ranging from 4.9 weeks (South Dakota) to 30.1 weeks (Nevada) in 2021. In 2023, when the national median unemployment duration was 8.9 weeks, state figures ranged from 4.3 weeks (Nebraska and South Dakota) to 17.5 weeks (the District of Columbia). Differences in unemployment duration by state may be due to state policies, the mix of industries present, demographic differences in states’ populations, or other factors.

 

Some Workers Find Jobs; Others Exit the Labor Force

The previous charts presented data about incomplete spells of unemployment (respondents were unemployed at the time of survey). BLS also produces estimates of the duration of completed spells of unemployment. Not all spells of unemployment end with a new job; some workers cease searching for employment and leave the labor force (whether temporarily or permanently). These transitions in employment status are known as labor force flows.

A successful job search (flow from unemployed to employed) tends to be shorter than a search that concludes with the individual exiting the labor force (flow from unemployed to not in the labor force). In 2019, the median number of weeks that jobseekers were unemployed in the month prior to finding work was 5.6 weeks. In the following years, the median length of time for a successful job search was 8.5 weeks in 2020 and 8.2 weeks in 2021. This figure declined to 4.9 weeks in 2022 and was 5.5 weeks in 2023. The median duration of unemployment for those who eventually stopped looking for a job and left the labor force increased sharply from 10.3 weeks in 2019 to 17.2 weeks in 2021. In 2022, the median length of these job searches was down to 9.9 weeks. The 2023 figure was similar, at 10.0 weeks.

More Information

Megan Wilkins is an economist in the Division of Labor Force Statistics, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. For questions about this Spotlight, please contact us.

Median unemployment duration represents the number of weeks of unemployment such that half of all unemployed people had been looking for work more weeks than the median and half had looked for fewer weeks. This measure reflects still-in-progress spells of unemployment, not completed spells. Unemployment duration and flows data, along with demographic detail and other labor force measures, are collected monthly in the Current Population Survey (CPS)—a nationally representative sample survey of approximately 60,000 households, which is conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The data presented in this Spotlight are for the civilian noninstitutional population age 16 and over, unless otherwise noted. Data on veterans is for the civilian noninstitutional population age 18 and over.

For more information about unemployment duration, see https://www.bls.gov/cps/definitions.htm#duration. Labor force status flows information can be found at https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_flows.htm.