A successful job search took twice as long in 2010 as it did in 2007
In recent years, unemployed people have spent fewer weeks looking for work before finding a job or leaving the labor force.
Emphasizing the severity of the 2007-2009 recession, the length of time it took an unemployed person to find a job doubled from a median of 5.1 weeks in 2007 to 10.3 weeks in 2010. Since 2010, a successful job search has taken less time, reaching a 7.6-week median in 2014.
Unemployed people who left the labor force—that is, they stopped looking for work before finding a job—spent a median of 8.6 weeks looking for work in 2007. By 2011, the median had climbed to 21.6 weeks before starting to decline. It reached 16.0 weeks in 2014.