Nearly two million Americans have been out of work for six months or longer, even as the broader labor market shows signs of improvement, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The share of unemployed workers out of a job for 27 weeks or more reached 27.3 percent in June, up four percentage points from a year earlier and near the highest level since late 2021.
Long-term unemployment is hitting prime working age adults hardest, with workers in their mid-20s to mid-30s making up 27 percent of the long-term unemployed, the largest share of any age group.
More than a third of unemployed workers in professional services have been out of work for six months or more, with government, finance and information technology also showing high rates of long-term unemployment.
Hiring as a share of employment has barely moved in two years, meaning workers who lose a job face longer searches even though layoffs remain low.
Economists say spending six months or more unemployed often makes a worker's previous skills less transferable, pushing some into lower-paying jobs once they do find work.
If you become unemployed, hires are very low right now, so it's hard to get a job especially in certain [white-collar] sectors where we haven't seen a lot of growth."
Read more via The Wall Street Journal
More young people are skipping the four-year degree for trade school, betting that hands-on skilled work will hold up better against AI than a typical office job.
Enrollment at public two-year trade and vocational schools grew nearly 20 percent between 2020 and 2025, according to National Student Clearinghouse data.
Students in short-term vocational programs can now use Pell grants, making trade school more affordable compared to a four year degree, which now costs close to $200,000 at private schools.
A report found 71 percent of Gen Z respondents think vocational school carries more stigma than college, but only 7 percent of parents said they'd actually prefer their kid go into a trade.
The nonprofit Bring Back the Trades projects 1.4 million trade jobs will go unfilled by 2030 due to retirements and rising demand for infrastructure work.
More than 60 percent of high school grads still go straight to college, and workers with a bachelor's degree still earn 1.8 times more on average than those with just a high school diploma.
There has been no watershed of people abandoning the four-year institutions, and nor should there be."
Read more via The New York Times
A new Dice report challenges the idea that tech hiring has collapsed, arguing the market shifted instead of shrinking.
AI and machine learning job postings jumped 173 percent year over year from Q1 2025 to Q1 2026, the fastest growing part of the tech market.
Tech hiring is growing faster outside the tech industry than inside it, up 47 percent in finance and banking, 27 percent in manufacturing, and 23 percent each in insurance and aerospace and defense.
Monthly tech job postings hit almost 290,000 in May 2026, up from lows near 200,000 during the market correction.
The share of tech postings requiring at least one AI skill jumped from 15 percent in January 2024 to 73 percent in May 2026, and AI roles pay a median salary 22 percent above the rest of the tech market.
Entry-level hiring is still down overall, with postings for workers with zero to one year of experience 38 percent below 2019 levels, even though demand for specific entry-level jobs like service desk technician and data engineer is growing fast.
Read more via Dice
A new Morgan McKinley survey shows a growing gap between how workers and employers view pay.
Nearly 70 percent of workers said they didn't get a pay bump in the last six months, up from 65 percent a year ago.
Even so, almost half of workers still expect a raise within the next year.
48 percent of employers said they increased pay, and nearly three quarters said raises are planned for certain roles over the coming year.
67 percent of employers reported employee turnover in the past six months, and 19 percent said perceptions about pay played a role.
More than half of workers said mental health support factors into whether they stay at a job, a view shared by 71 percent of employers.
Read more via HR Dive
A MyPerfectResume analysis of government data estimates the total gender earnings gap topped $671 billion in 2025, even though women's individual pay hit record highs.
Women's median weekly pay more than doubled since 2000, going from $493 to about $1,089 in 2025.
Women earned about 77 cents for every dollar men made in 2000. That improved to about 82 cents by 2025.
The dollar gap between men and women's pay still grew by more than 60 percent over that time, from about $7,696 a year in 2000 to $12,324 in 2025.
The total estimated gap grew from about $327 billion in 2000 to $671 billion in 2025, as more women joined the full-time workforce.
More than 9.5 million additional women started working full time over the period studied.
Read more via MyPerfectResume
A new Monster survey finds fake job offers have become almost impossible to avoid, though job seekers say they're also getting better at catching them.
95 percent of job seekers said they've come across a suspicious job offer, and 53 percent said they were personally targeted by a scam.
Email (65%), text messages (63%), and cold outreach from recruiters (56%) were the most common ways scams reached people, according to respondents.
The biggest red flags included communication that stayed limited to text or chat, job offers with no real interview, and promises of high pay for very little work.
33 percent of job seekers said they wasted time applying or interviewing for fake jobs, and 24 percent said it caused ongoing stress.
98 percent said today's job market makes people more vulnerable to scams overall.
Read more via Monster
A new wave of congressional interns is posting daily outfit videos and behind the scenes clips from the Capitol, a shift from the job's usual low profile.
Some interns have built followings of thousands by documenting their outfits and daily routines around the Capitol.
Members of Congress, including Representative Sara Jacobs and Representative Kat Cammack, said the posts make Washington feel more relatable to the public.
Such posts can counter Congress's image as a dysfunctional, politically fractured institution marked by partisanship.
