US Job Seekers Face Longer Searches After Corporate Layoffs

Unemployed Americans are facing months or even years of searching for work as corporate layoffs, slower hiring and automated recruitment systems make finding a new position increasingly difficult. In Arlington, Virginia, 31-year-old Lissette Ramos has spent a year applying for jobs after losing her corporate position, drawing on savings and retirement funds to cover basic expenses.

Ramos lost her first corporate job during a wave of layoffs at mortgage company Freddie Mac. After exhausting six weeks of severance pay and much of her savings, she began withdrawing from her retirement account and relying on credit cards to purchase groceries while paying only the minimum balance.

According to the USA TODAY report, Ramos spends four to eight hours each day searching employment websites and tailoring her resume to suitable openings. Although she qualifies for government food assistance and recently secured substitute teaching work, the limited income barely covers her essential expenses.

Her information science degree from the University of Michigan, earned in 2023, has not helped her overcome a hiring impasse. She faces competition for junior and midlevel positions while employers consider her overqualified for entry-level roles.

"Financially, I am really shaky right now," said Ramos. "I just wish I could figure out what I have to do."

Ramos said she has remained in the job hunt since her dismissal and is prepared to relocate again to secure employment.

"I have been looking since the day I was laid off," said Ramos. "I am in a hard place right now."

The broader labor market presents similar challenges, despite an unemployment rate of 4.2% cited in the report. Labor shortages persist in health care and skilled trades, but openings in many other industries have become harder to secure as businesses respond to high interest rates and economic uncertainty by slowing recruitment and limiting expansion.

Employers are also relying more heavily on existing staff and artificial intelligence to handle work, according to labor market experts cited by USA TODAY. Meanwhile, the average duration of unemployment has exceeded five months, and more than 27% of job seekers had been searching for at least 27 weeks without finding work.

Recruiting platform Greenhouse provided USA TODAY with data showing that the average time required to fill a vacancy increased from 41.4 days in 2022 to 61.5 days during the first eight months of 2026.

The growing use of automated screening systems has added another obstacle. Easier online applications have increased the volume of resumes reaching recruiters, while artificial intelligence tools can filter out candidates before employers review their applications.

Carl Van Horn, a Rutgers public policy professor who has studied unemployment trends for 40 years, said he frequently hears from applicants who submit hundreds of resumes without receiving a response from a person. Missing relevant keywords can prevent an application from reaching a recruiter, he said.

Van Horn also described the loss of employment as a disruption extending beyond wages and benefits, affecting professional relationships, personal well-being and a sense of purpose.

"When people lose their job, they are not only losing income and relationships, a sense of well-being and meaningfulness, they're also out there without a net," Van Horn said.

He said the lack of support leaves unemployed workers struggling to regain stability after losing their jobs.

"They are on their own," Van Horn said.

For Briana Grace, a 31-year-old payroll specialist and mother of a three-year-old daughter, the disruption began before a planned move to a Houston apartment. After working continuously since age 15, she was laid off from the company where she had spent four years, shortly before she and her daughter were due to move into their new home.

Grace initially approached her job search with determination, but the momentum quickly faded as she encountered the difficulties confronting other applicants in a market where large application volumes and automated screening can delay or prevent employer responses.