nis Shaver has been looking for a job for 17 months.

His wife, Patty Edwards Shaver, has been out of work for a year.

In eight weeks, the unemployment checks that have been helping to pay their mortgage will stop coming.

he Shavers, who live in North Raleigh, are among the 2.3 million people nationwide who have been out of work for more than a year. In North Carolina that figure stands at 88,000.

The long-term jobless are blue- and white-collar workers. They come from all age groups, income levels and ethnicities. And with the state's unemployment rate at a 30-year high of 11.2 percent, their numbers are growing.

That so many different people have been unable to find work for so long makes this recession unlike any other in decades.

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