As U.S. hiring slows, more Americans are job hunting for months

When Anna Whitlock was let go from her job in the technology industry in November of 2024, she wasn't worried about lining up a new position. The Washington state resident had 11 years of experience managing network infrastructure projects, a specialized role that involves equipping buildings with internet access, cameras and wifi security systems.

"The last time I had to job search, I found something pretty easily," she said.

Almost a year later, the 37-year-old is still without a job. Whitlock said she has applied to hundreds of jobs — even for positions she's overqualified for — to no avail.

"The more I looked, the more I wasn't getting responses. If I did have an interview, I only made it the first one or two rounds," said Whitlock, who has a 16-year-old daughter. "Things got really real when my unemployment ran out."

Whitlock is among the growing ranks of Americans who have been jobless for more than six months, with the number of long-term unemployed people rising to 1.9 million in August, according to government data — the highest level since 2021, when the nation was still reeling from the pandemic.

Although the nation's unemployment rate remains historically low, at 4.3%, the share of Americans defined as long-term unemployed — or those unemployed for 27 weeks or longer — has risen to 26%, the highest in more than three years, labor data shows.

With the job market faltering in recent months as employers put the brakes on hiring, more workers like Whitlock are being sidelined for months on end, economists told CBS News.

"We're continuing to see this low-hire, low-fire environment," said Laura Ullrich, Indeed's director of economic research for North America and a former official at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. "There aren't really new jobs being opened up for people — there isn't room for new people to come in."

While the government's September jobs report won't be released on Friday because of the government shutdown, other recent economic signals point to an ongoing slowdown in job growth. Private employers declined by 32,000 jobs in September, according to payroll processing firm ADP. The number of job openings around the U.S. has also steadily dropped, economic data shows.

The rise in long-term unemployed Americans poses two risks, Ullrich said. Workers themselves can suffer financial setbacks as they burn through savings and take on debt to stay afloat. And the broader U.S. economy can suffer if people give up on looking for work after becoming discouraged at the prospects of finding a job.

"Folks who do go into this long-term unemployment category, it's harder for them to get back into the labor force," he said. "The concern is that they become discouraged workers and they stop working, and then they fall out of the labor force entirely."

People who have been hunting for a job for months say the process is both frustrating and demoralizing, especially after sending hundreds of applications that fail to get a response. James Strawn, 55, a software quality expert in Colorado who lost his job in July, said he's submitted 100 applications and only received one response.

"I've had people say, 'Those are rookie numbers, like that is nothing — I've submitted 1,000 applications'," he told CBS News. "Every morning when I get on LinkedIn — I'm on there all day now — I see another post that's like another horror story of looking for jobs."

Strawn said he was rejected from a minimum wage job at a fitness center, and has taken on a seasonal job at UPS. But he's increasingly fearful that he may not find work in his technology field by year-end, when his severance pay runs out.

Strawn also worries that ageism could be playing a role in his struggle to land a job in his field. "It's going to take a small miracle to find something," he said. "It's really tough — it's really a bad market."

It's not only experienced workers who are struggling. Young workers and recent college graduates are also having a hard time breaking into the job market. Because there's a glut of workers looking for jobs, employers are requiring that applicants have more extensive resumes, Ullrich told CBS News.

"They are asking for more years of experience, like nine-plus," she said. "Most of it is because they can."

The unemployment rate for 16-to-24-year-olds is "slowly but steadily rising," said Elise Gould, an economist at the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute.

Matthew McMeans, who graduated from the University of Memphis last year, estimates he applied to roughly 500 jobs during an 18-month job search before landing a position as a full stack software engineer in early August. He described the job hunt as "miserable" and "degrading" given the difficulty in landing interviews.

"When I started my degree, the hopes were really high that you were going to get multiple offers when you graduated," the 23-year-old said. "But as soon as I started really searching and applying, I was quickly humbled."

The wobbly labor market has caught the attention of the Federal Reserve, which has a so-called dual mandate to keep both unemployment and inflation low. Last month, the central bank cut interest rates for the first time since December 2024 in an effort to bolster the labor market.

But even if the job market improves, for many the damage has already been done. Whitlock, the IT professional who has been unemployed for almost a year, said she's managed to get assistance through programs like SNAP, better known as food stamps, and to negotiate down her cell phone and car insurance bills.

But she was also forced to liquidate her retirement fund and a small investment account to make sure she had enough to live on.

Said Whitlock, "I'm probably right now in a position where I've got maybe three months until I'm in a really bad spot."