Question about people unemployed for extended time

[disneysteve]

I have an honest, sincere question that I'd like to hear people discuss. Over the past couple of years, I've been running into stories here and elsewhere about people losing their jobs and being out of work for an extended period of time, as long as a year or two. I just can't fathom being unemployed and unemployable for that long.

I realize that my point of reference may be distorted by a couple of things. Number one, my location and number two, my profession. Here in NJ, the recession didn't hit as hard as in some other areas. Although unemployment is higher than it was previously and some businesses have closed, I've also seen plenty of new places open and both new and existing places managing or even thriving throughout the recession.

Professionally, as you know, I'm a physician. While no job is 100% recession-proof, mine is pretty solid. If I lost my current position tomorrow, I have no doubt that I could find work in a matter of weeks if not days. I get physician recruitment e-mails and snail mail offers every single week, both for temp work and permanent positions, both local and national. I've passed up more offers than I can count in the past 2 years because I was not looking for work. Had I been in the market for a job, the choices would have been plentiful.

So I'm interested in hearing from anyone who is in a different situation and has been in the market for more than a few months. Are there just no jobs in your field? Are there no jobs in your geographic area? Are there jobs that just aren't paying enough for you to maintain your lifestyle? Have you considered relocating to find work? Have you taken a lower paying job just to have some money coming in? Are you being turned away for being over-qualified?

As I said, I just can't see being completely out of work for 2 years but I really have no personal experience that would allow me to understand being in that situation.

[maat55]

My business can be classified as feast or famine at anytime, but during good years, it is generally feast.

During this recession I have endured as much famine as feast, but I can say that currently I am very busy and have had to hire an additional upholsterer. I'm fortunate to have a fairly good size commercial job for a cancer treatment center. Yet, once it is over, I could see moderate to low workload.

I can't answer to how it would be if I were looking for work as an employee in my field, but it has generally not been good. I would likely attempt to work partially for different shops.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Right now depends. Personally it's location based for my DH and I. I have offers of work where we live but I don't want to live here. The place we want to live? We've been trying for about a year now to get positions. Nothing right now, perhaps when the market gets better.

It can be really hard to land positions depending on where you want to live. Also it depends on experience and money. The higher the ladder you climb the harder it is to find a position because there typically are less positions.

I know many people unemployed for 1 year or more. Problem is a lot of them don't want to relocate because their spouse has a job so they find themselves stuck.

[marvholly]

I have been unemployed since 8/10. My specific situation is that corp decided it made more sense to hire a CHEAP, just out of school person to do my job that I had been doing (and learning) for >20 years. After all, the corp headquarters buying staff made all the contracts.

Hogwash. I made MUCH better deals w/the SAME vendors for my location. You need to know how to play the game(s) and that requires experience.

Finding a new job is problematic because:
I go on Medicare in June (age issue)
I DO expect to be compensated comensurate w/my experience (adjusted for hours worked)& responsibilities
I need/strongly prefer PT right now as my 93 y/o father went into the hospital for the first of 4 hospital/rehab stints the SAME day I was let go. He is currently in rehab & I am search for a new assisted living place for him & will need to close his current senior independent apt.
I have NO interest in relocating as my kids/grands are local

given another hour I could probably think of a few more.

[MonkeyMama]

My dad has been unemployed for a long time. (I don't remember him being unemployed more than 5 minutes the entire time I was a child - his job is very project based so he has been laid off dozens of times over the years - once projects are complete. Finding a new job always seemed very easy).

That said, I think a lot of OP's points are valid. My dad is near retirement anyway, unwilling to move, unwilling to go back to school, and unwilling to be paid less than he is used to. Which means, he is is retired and works when he can. Logic is just to retire early.

My young spouse has been in a similar boat. He doesn't have to work, and I have a good job, so we are not moving. But, he really has had a hard time with the job market the past decade.

Both of them have 100 times more hustle if NEED BE. But, by the same token, these are people who have never had trouble finding work before. So, it is interesting. I think it is a sign of the times. Maybe people have to be extraordinarily adaptable to find work these days. Unemployment in my city is still the worst in the country. You have to compete with hundreds of people to get a job at McDonalds. It is definitely TOUGH out there. Settling for a lower paying job is not the problem for many people I know - it's amazingly hard to find ANY jobs.

[MonkeyMama]

Originally Posted by marvholly

I have been unemployed since 8/10. My specific situation is that corp decided it made more sense to hire a CHEAP, just out of school person to do my job that I had been doing (and learning) for >20 years. After all, the corp headquarters buying staff made all the contracts.

Hogwash. I made MUCH better deals w/the SAME vendors for my location. You need to know how to play the game(s) and that requires experience.

I think many 50-60 years old will tell you this story.

Reminds me of both our fathers and several people I know. Most who are legitimately not willing to be paid the paltry sums of new college grads - for the same work.

[KTP]

Software engineering seems about as recession-proof as a physician. I don't mean web page designers but people who converse easier in C# than in english. My wife gets about 3 job offers a week trying to lure her away from a company that treats her very well.

[SnoopyCool]

DH went through unemployment from 10/08 to 3/09, when he started his own business. He was a project manager for a construction company, and try as he might there were no jobs available to him (hundreds of résumés out, a handful of callbacks, even less interviews). Construction is not really great right now in our neck of the woods.

Instead of sitting in the realms of despair or hitting brick wall after brick wall, he created his own job. I realize that isn't for everyone, but I'm grateful that he decided to do that. It has worked-out beautifully.

[zetta]

My aunt was laid off about three years ago. She was 62 at the time and the manager of an accounting group of 8-10 people. The company moved all accounting from Indiana to Connecticut. They offered some of the younger staff the option of moving, but did not give her a choice. She was on track to finish paying off her house by age 67 and planned to retire at that point. It took her about 6 months to find a contract-to-hire position in accounting that paid 2/3 of her previous salary. She worked that job for a year, and at the point where the company would have been required to hire her they terminated the contract. She has been looking for work ever since, but has been unable to find anything but lower skill bookkeeping jobs that she is overqualified for. We are sure that age is a large factor, as employers assume she will retire soon. She has had to rent out her house, move in with her daughter, and sign up for social security. She was basically forced into an earlier retirement than she planned on.

[mom-from-missouri]

It is very bad here. I can tell you as volunteer in at a crisis center. We have people who can't find anything, except jobs they can't/won't take. As an example, we have a man who lost his job 11 months ago whose family comes in on occasion for assistance. Our welfare systems are so messed up-he wants to work, but can't.. Right now he is getting unemployment. He thought he could possibly sub teach, but the unemployment gal from the state told him we would lose his unemployment if he did, and might not get it back. Sub teaching isn't steady, so he nixed that. (He is an IT guy, and also an IT instructor). He figured at least he could work at fast food--but that only pays 1/3 of his unemployment, not enough to provide for his family.

I notice a lot of the McDonalds and Hardees are having their counters run by older people--45 and up, where as before it was more high schoolers. Even Worlds of Fun (amusement park in Kansas City) has older people competing for jobs with 14 year olds.

I am an EMT. There are no EMT jobs--right now it is paramedic jobs that we are seeing. Its sad when the fire departments are laying off, but there are the same number of fires and med calls....I only need to work 40 hours a year, but can't find that--so I work it as a volunteer to get my hours in. But, if I were to drive 3 hours south, there are tons of them.

At the crisis center, we have several who have been volunteers there for years, that are now needing assistance. These are not lazy people, but people who are looking for work, and their companies have closed or laid them off.

One common theme we see over and over--many of them, around 80% are facing foreclosure--several have stated they were served papers after being only 2 or 3 months behind. In the past, we heard from families they were 6-7 months behind and getting served.

[Pansori]

I am also in Missouri, about 3 1/2 hours south of KC. It is also bad here, but maybe not as bad as up north. We have a couple of companies that are doing mass hiring, such as Expedia, Chase, etc. The pay is not great, although I hear there is commission. I am also close enough to Branson where people will go work for the shows. It is seasonal, but I have heard the pay is decent.

Also, no EMT jobs for us, either. Nurses and real estate are definitely feeling a cut as well.

[disneysteve]

Age is definitely a factor and I can understand why folks in their 60's and maybe even upper 50's would have more trouble finding work than those who are younger. I also understand about people with higher-ranking positions having more trouble finding comparable work since fewer of those jobs exist, but that doesn't mean those people couldn't take jobs a couple of rungs lower on the corporate ladder if those jobs were available. They'd certainly be qualified.

I also appreciate SnoopyCool's story of her husband starting his own business when he couldn't find a job. Obviously, the work was out there if he was able to start his business and do so successfully. I wonder how many people who are unemployed could go that route. It certainly isn't for everyone but it is an option that might not be fully explored.

As for relocating, what about temporary relocation? If I had to, I'd be willing to live apart from my family if that's what it took to find work. I wouldn't want to do it forever but doing it for 6 months or a year would be a lot better than not working at all.

mom-from-missouri makes an extremely important point about the screwed up assistance system. People are often trapped. They can't go back to work because they will lose their benefits - unemployment, health insurance, etc. If the new job doesn't pay enough, it may not be worth taking. I run into that with patients frequently. They may work where they get paid under the table but they won't take official jobs because the minute they do, they lose so much as to make it not worth it. Something needs to change with that.

[poodlemom]

My husband was layed off and had a hard time finding work. A lot of places would not talk with him because he was over qualified or had earned to much. He did take a job 2 hours from home and only comes home on weekends. He is a digital engineer under 50 when he was layed off due to division closing. We are just glad he has work and insurance

[zetta]

Originally Posted by disneysteve

Age is definitely a factor and I can understand why folks in their 60's and maybe even upper 50's would have more trouble finding work than those who are younger. I also understand about people with higher-ranking positions having more trouble finding comparable work since fewer of those jobs exist, but that doesn't mean those people couldn't take jobs a couple of rungs lower on the corporate ladder if those jobs were available. They'd certainly be qualified.
.

They would be qualified for a job lower on the ladder, but would be very unlikely to be given an offer. The employer generally will go for someone whose experience is equal to the job (and in this market there will be plenty to choose from), figuring someone overqualified will jump ship as soon as the economy improves and a better job opens up.

[bjl584]

Steve,
The recession hasn't had much of an impact on me either, as I have been working two jobs throughout.

However,
I do have a friend that was laid off, and he remained unemployed for over a year. He was a car salesman, and had more than one job offer that he passed on while being unemployed. He openly said that he enjoyed not having to go to work. All that he had to do was log onto the internet every two weeks and , bamm!, you get money deposited into your account. Eventually the extensions ran out and he had to go back to work. He could have had a job within a month, but he chose to drag it out for a year so that he could drink, hunt, fish, and go on vacations. I found it to be imature and irresposible. That's pretty much my only experience with unemployment.

By the way, I realize that his situation is not descriptive of the majority of people out of work.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

I proofread cover letters for a neighbor who was unemployed for more than 2.5 years. She used my internet, too, to make online applications, and keep up with Monster.com and such. She took her inability to find work in her field personally and became more and more depressed and a little irrational. I was frustrated with her because she would not apply for jobs that seemed beneath her, though she had already broken into her retirement savings. That refusal seemed like part of her irrationality. She was 60 and not nearly ready to retire, savings wise. Really I think she needed mental health intervention of some sort. Her lack of confidence became extreme to the point that I could not imagine her interviewing well.

Eventually she found a job in her field. But after a year, that job looks like it is on the chopping block, and I don't see how she would survive another blow mentally. She may be the next person you see begging food on the supermarket parking lot. It's that bad. Fragile people do not weather long term unemployment well.

[GREENBACK]

Originally Posted by disneysteve

I run into that with patients frequently. They may work where they get paid under the table but they won't take official jobs because the minute they do, they lose so much as to make it not worth it. Something needs to change with that.

This is a very old problem. We keep electing people to fix this stuff but all they concern themselves with is getting re-elected.

[FrugalTexan75]

For all intents and purposes, I've been underemployed/unemployed since Feb, 2009. When I was laid off, I did have the minimum wage job at the local gym, which went from 4 hours a week to 30 hours a week. For months and months I sent out tons of resumes, and had a few interviews. Then I started doing tutoring in Jan 2010, which is what I'm still doing now. It is a very up and down business. Going into the summer this year is slightly better than in 2010, because I actually have one, possibly two students lined up.

I am 35, and now have a Master's Degree. I've been sending out applications by the fistful since January for school library positions - at least ten different states -- and only one interview (didn't get it), and a second possible interview coming up. In April I started getting desperate, and began putting resumes out to other places - like oil and gas companies. One interview (nope), and one possible interview (if the person ever gets back from vacation!!)

It's very frustrating.

[shanecurran]

Being unemployed can make a person feel unimportant and lower one's self esteem. I think this makes it harder for the person to find a job because they have a worsening attitude and a lower self esteem that rears it ugly head in an interview.

I finished grad school in 2009 (dual MS econ and finance). I returned to California to live with the parents while I looked for a job. California was in bad shape at that time so I expanded my search to other states. The problem is that companies are less willing to hire someone who will have moving expenses. In my field I was competing against professionals who were recently laid off and had a fancy degree and work experience. Actually getting an interview was tough. Getting an interview became somewhat of an accomplishment for me. I had one interview in particular where they flew me out, put me up, the whole nine. It was an 8 hour interview. About a week later I received an email stating that they lost funding for the position and therefore closed the position (not-"sorry it was a bad fit" or "we went another direction"). My frustration boiled over. Even when I found a job that I was a perfect fit for, the company lost funding.

At this point I moved to be close to my sister and work in a restaurant. I figured that at least I would be making some money and it really couldn't hurt my resume worse than being unemployed. The first few months were extremely humbling. After about a year of working in the industry, I found myself motivated again to take on the job search. I had regained some confidence, and had some perspective. I found a job about 3 months later after 1 phone interview, 6 in person interviews, one job offer that fell through, tweaking my resume several times, and sending out lots of emails and resumes. Eventually I found a job through a friend of a friend. Networking was the most important tool I had in my job hunt and resulted in all but one of my interviews.

The restaurant industry was not a long term plan. It was hard to work a job that was unrelated to my training. It was humbling to work a job that I was completely overqualified for, but in the end I was able to get on my feet, raise my self-esteem, and find the motivation I needed. The industry proved to be great for networking as well.

[zakity]

My friend's husband was unemployed for almost two years. He applied for jobs and had a few interviews, but no "bites". There were tons of people unemployed around here and the employers have their pick of the litter. Her husband is totally the "got to have a job/overly responsible" sort and I know he worked hard on getting a new job.

He has been working for a friend here and there for several years. When the friend has some extra work, he has my friend's DH do it. It has really varied on how many hours he worked for him. Sometimes, it is 10 hours in a week and, occasionally, it is a full week's work (that only happened like once or twice though). His friend started having him to the networking part of his business and has finally hired him on full time.