Instead of busy days overseeing hotel catering and room service, Cindy Tlaiye has settled into a more solitary, frustrating routine in recent months.
Every morning, she sits down at her computer, refreshes several job boards to see new listings and shoots off an application or two. Then she braces herself to hear — nothing.
"It's been really disheartening," said Tlaiye, 34, who lost her hotel job in March. "I know that people are probably getting hundreds of applications at the same time, but it's made me feel completely desperate."
As the coronavirus pandemic continues to weigh down the economy, Tlaiye is among the swelling number of people who have been without a job for at least six months, a group that economists call the "long-term unemployed."
About 3.9 million people, or more than one-third of all unemployed Americans, are now in the category. That's up from up from 1.1 million in February.
With many industries such as hotels, travel, entertainment and restaurants devastated by the pandemic, it could be awhile before many of those jobs come back, if they don't shift elsewhere. Minnesota has regained a little over half of the jobs lost earlier this year, but a full jobs recovery isn't expected until late 2022 or early 2023, according to a recent state forecast.
The long-term unemployed face not just the immediate economic consequences of being out of work but the prospect of damage to their career trajectory and future earnings. And on the day after Christmas, extended unemployment benefits are set to expire for most of them, unless Congress, or the state, takes action.
In Minnesota alone, more than 100,000 people are expected to lose jobless payments in the next two weeks, said Steve Grove, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED). Most of those workers have exhausted their 26 weeks of regular state unemployment benefits and are collecting an extended 13 weeks through a temporary federal program. But that program, as well as one that provides jobless payments for gig workers and small-business owners, lapses at the end of the year.