February 13, 2007 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Length of unemployment, 2005

Overall, 14.5 million persons experienced some unemployment in 2005.

Extent of unemployment of workers unemployed during the year, 2005
[Chart data—TXT]

About 400,000 of these were persons who worked year round but were unemployed for 1 or 2 weeks.

Of the 11.7 million persons who worked during part of the year and also experienced some unemployment, about 4 million were unemployed for periods ranging from 1 to 10 weeks. About 5 million were unemployed for periods ranging from 11 to 26 weeks. The remaining individuals were unemployed for 27 weeks or longer.

About 2.4 million individuals looked for a job, but did not work at all in 2005.

In 2005, among those who experienced unemployment, the median number of weeks spent looking for work was 14.6; half were unemployed for a shorter period, half for a longer period.

These data are from the Current Population Survey. To learn more, see Work Experience of the Population in 2005 (PDF) (TXT), USDL news release 07-0199.  Data refer to persons 16 years and over.  Time worked includes paid vacation and sick leave.