U.S. employers add 29,000 jobs as job searches take longer

Nearly 2 million U.S. workers jobless for six months or more

U.S. employers added 29,000 jobs last month — one job for every 244 unemployed workers — and the average worker is taking longer to find a new job. More people are exhausting their unemployment benefits before any new paychecks begin. The unemployment rate has remained low, at 4.2% in September.

“When you’re one of the people that doesn’t have a job, it doesn’t really matter what the percentage is,” said Cheryl Huff, who was laid off from a state government job in Colorado four months ago. “It’s impacting your life in a big, big way.”

Huff told NPR she has applied for dozens of positions, spending hours on each one to tailor her resume to the specific job requirements. She has received only a handful of interviews — all by telephone — and a lot of what seem like automated emails. On one occasion, she received two messages at once from the same employer, one saying her application was under review and the other saying the job had already been filled. “That’s one of the frustrations that people are having,” Huff said. “Did you even look at my stuff?”

In the meantime, Huff is paying $1,300 a month to maintain her old employer-provided health insurance. Her husband is retired, she said, so the family budget is tight. “It’s Social Security for him and unemployment for me,” Huff said. “It’s amazing how little money that is when you go to the store and you see a bag of granola is $8.50.”

Evan Smith lost his job at a Colorado RV dealership this past spring after the company was sold. He told NPR he has applied for numerous jobs since then but hasn’t found much traction. “You find something that you’re excited about or something that you think fits your profile and you go in and over 100 people have already clicked ‘applied for it’ in the last two weeks,” Smith said. “So you just feel like you’re a number.”

The length of unemployment benefits varies by state. Colorado offers six months of unemployment benefits, and Huff’s are set to run out in early December. In many states, benefits expire even faster. North Carolina offers less than three months of unemployment, and its weekly payments are capped at $350.

Keke Moore of Raleigh lost her job as a meeting planner last December and has been out of work for almost a year. “With so many people being out of work, we’re all out here, it feels like to me, fighting for scraps,” Moore said. Even while she was receiving unemployment, North Carolina benefits were capped at $350 a week. That limited aid has now expired, and Moore’s 21-year-old son, who has a part-time job, has been helping out with the household bills. “Bless his heart, he does have a part-time job, so he’s been doing what he can to help his mama out,” Moore said. “But I mean, I feel like a failure as a parent, because it’s like I don’t want him worrying about bills.”

Of the more than 7 million unemployed people in the country, nearly 2 million have been out of work for six months or more. A broader measure of labor underutilization — the U-6 rate, which adds discouraged workers and people working part time for economic reasons — stood at 7.6% in September, above the official 4.2% reading.

Aside from the financial stress, there is an emotional toll to being out of work so long. Smith described the job hunt as an exhausting full-time gig and said he sometimes goes for a hike to give himself a break. “My wife, usually on a Friday when we’re sitting on the back porch after work — after she gets done with work — she’s like, ‘How are you feeling?’” Smith said. “Keeping a good attitude, I think, is huge. Getting discouraged is really freaking easy.”