Long-term unemployment has remained largely stable as a percentage of total unemployment over the past year. As total unemployment has been declining this means the number of long-term unemployed is also decreasing. As the proportion is largely stable it means that the long-term unemployed are not being left behind, nor are they in the vanguard of any recovery. Also, some long-term unemployed may leave unemployed status by moving into employment, retirement, education, or emigration (but the publicly available data does not allow one to show which reason is dominant).
In 2007 only 30% of unemployed were long-term unemployed. This is as the bulk of unemployment at the time was due to 'frictional' unemployment whereby people were genuinely between jobs. In contrast, today the bulk of unemployment is due to 'cyclical' reasons (because we are in a recession).
More information on long-term unemployment can be seen in indicator 2.3 of the latest NERI Quarterly Economic Facts.