Americans face eight-month wait to find a job

American workers are facing more than eight-month waits to find a job, more than double what it took before the recession started. 

The average time people are unemployed is 34.4 weeks in May from 16.5 weeks in December 2007, according to a Labor Department and National Employment Law Project (NELP) reports. 

The number of long-term unemployed has increased from 1.3 million at the start of the recession and has climbed to 6.8 million, making up 46 percent of all unemployed up from 15 percent more than 2 years ago, NELP and Labor said. 

"As it stands, there are nearly 5.6 unemployed workers for every one job opening nationally, indicating that long-term unemployment will continue to be a serious problem that, as the analysis shows, affects workers across various groups and industries," the NELP report said. 

There are 15 million unemployed workers, more than double the 7.7 million at the end of 2007 when the unemployment rate was generally holding steady around 5 percent. The rate dropped from 9.9 percent to 9.7 percent after today's employment news.

"Although certain positive indicators show that the job market is finally starting to reap the gains of the recovery in overall demand -- temporary hiring has been positive for the last eight months and the economy has added jobs for the last five months -- the jobs hole is simply too large to expect that millions of unemployed jobseekers will be able to find work in the short term," the NELP report concluded. 

As the House Ways and Means Committee takes up the matter of the long-term unemployed in a hearing next week, lawmakers are continuing to wage battle over extending unemployment benefits to Americans struggling to find work over the long term. 

Subsidies for COBRA insurance and unemployment benefits were allowed to expire over the Memorial Day recess as the Senate decided not to consider the measure. 

Lawmakers from both parties across the Capitol have called for the benefits extension to be paid for by using unspent stimulus money. Depending on the state's unemployment rate, the unemployed could receive between 60 and 99 weeks of combined federal and state benefits. 

If benefits aren't extended, 1.2 million workers will lose their benefits by the end June.