Duration of Unemployment

The duration of unemployment refers to the duration of the period an individual remains unemployed while actively seeking work. For example, in the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or BLS, the duration of unemployment refers to the number of weeks a person has been actively searching for work while still unemployed. This measure only includes people who are unemployed at the time of the survey, so it does not capture how long it actually took those who already found jobs to get hired.

BLS calculates the average duration of unemployment using an arithmetic mean.

For simplicity, let’s assume that three people have been unemployed for eight, ten, and twelve weeks.

In this example, the average duration of unemployment is ten weeks.

While this provides a snapshot of ongoing unemployment, it has limitations.

The data comes from the Current Population Survey.

Only those who are unemployed at the time of the survey are considered when calculating the duration of unemployment. It does not include individuals who were previously unemployed but have since found a job. This means it does not include information about unemployment spells that have already ended.