text: (CNN) -- November 6, 2008, 9:06 a.m.: Ernie Casillas can peg the downward spiral of his life to that exact minute, when he was fired from his job as a mortgage broker. Barack Obama had just been elected president as Casillas was leaving the work force. 
  
  Nearly four years later, as Obama seeks reelection, Casillas has finally landed his first full-time job, emerging out of the group known as the long-term unemployed. 
  
  The Labor Department's July employment figures on Friday showed the average duration of unemployment shrank from 39.9 weeks in June to 38.8 weeks in July. The percentage of people who are unemployed long-term (27 weeks or longer) shrank from 41.9% in June to 40.7% in July. 
  
  Casillas says his life is evidence that the economy is beginning to turn around. But the road to his new job was painful, heartbreaking and financially devastating. 
  
  July jobs report: Hiring picks up, unemployment rises 
  
  He remembers his life pre-November 2008: He wore expensive suits, drove a Mercedes and spent every cent of his paycheck. When he was laid off, he thought he'd be back at work in two weeks. 
  
  He was wrong. 
  
  The subprime mortgage crisis was eating away at the U.S. economy. Employers were shedding jobs, not adding them. A few credits shy of his associate degree, Casillas found himself overqualified for many jobs but underqualified for higher-paid middle-class ones. 
  
  "Overqualified, what does that mean?" Casillas remembers. "They kept telling me that. Meanwhile, my life is going down the drain." 
  
  He lost his house, his Mercedes, and then his wife left him. In his 40s, he was forced to take the humiliating step of moving in with his mother. A year after he lost his job, he began selling everything he owned on Craigslist. 