After the release of the July jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, many of the headlines focused on the big revisions of prior months’ numbers, and then on the president firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But something important got a bit lost in the controversy — the updated numbers counting folks who’ve been out of work for 27 weeks or more, showing the ranks of the long-term unemployed  are swelling. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in July more than 1.8 million people were unemployed for at least six months, almost 180,000 more people than in June.

“That now represents about 24% of the total unemployed population,” said Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive economic policy think tank. “And it's the most long term joblessness we've seen since the end of 2021 in some of that tail end of Covid-19 recovery.”

Jacquez said much of the reason for the long-term unemployment is how businesses are responding to the economic policies of the Trump administration.

“What businesses are saying is that Trump's trade wars and economic policies are basically causing them to freeze up,” he said. “They are holding off on big hiring decisions, on big investments while they try and wait out this tumultuous period in the economy. And while they are waiting that out, they are not likely to be hiring more workers.”

That hesitation means a lot of grief for workers looking for jobs — workers like Michele Thomas of East Haven, Connecticut, who was laid off as a general manager at a dental implant office almost a year ago.

“I think I have applied for almost 250 jobs,” said Thomas. “I have gotten five interviews in that time frame and I'm finding it just being very challenging to even get a phone call back.”

For most of the last year, trying to find a job has been her job, with Thomas often spending four to six hours a day researching and applying for new opportunities. She’s about to start a new program with a Connecticut nonprofit called  “The Workplace,” which provides training and job placement for people struggling to find work or change careers.

Joe Carbone, president and CEO of The Workplace, said he’s seeing a lot more people in the same situation as Michele Thomas these days. And when he sees the national long-term unemployment creeping up, he gets particularly concerned. 

“When I see that begin to rise, I get a little bit queasy,” said Carbone, “because that tells me that there's a real bias out there not because [unemployed workers] did anything wrong, but because they seem to be a more riskier bet, and employers are rejecting people that need help.”

Carbone said tariffs and federal policy are definitely part of the trend, but he blames much of businesses’ hesitation to hire on the fact that our economy is in the midst of a big transition.

“Any employer worth their salt, is focusing on AI,” he said,  “and it's beginning to manifest itself in the form of, I think, acting as a barrier for a lot of folks to either advance or even to get their foot in the door with the economy.”

And being unemployed for a long time can have long term consequences, according to Jennie Brand, a professor of sociology at UCLA who studies the effect of extended unemployment on workers. 

“When they do find new jobs,” said Brand, “those are often at lower quality than the jobs they held previously. So lower wages, worse conditions, maybe lower benefits and other such aspects of the jobs that they might have benefited from before they were laid off.”

That can harm the long-term financial and emotional well-being of the individual worker, said Brand, but higher levels of long-term unemployment also ripples through the broader economy.

“The longer that people are unemployed,” she said, “the more that there's workers in the market seeking employment, and starts to crowd out new entrants into the unemployment arena.”

This creates a scenario where new graduates or others entering the job market for the first time or after a break are competing with people who have been job-hunting for months. People like Michele Thomas in Connecticut, who said she’s open to just about any job where she can use her skills at this point. Thomas said she’s used up her savings, and, even though her husband is still employed, she wants to be working.

“I'm trying to stay positive,” she said. “I'm trying not to beat myself up about it. I'm trying to just find any little thing to keep myself motivated and keep myself going.”

Thomas said she’ll continue updating her resume, writing cover letters, and taking courses for new certifications until something finally comes through.