{"id":31531,"date":"2010-01-21T09:16:33","date_gmt":"2010-01-21T09:16:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.corporate-eye.com\/blog\/?p=31531"},"modified":"2020-01-08T12:14:51","modified_gmt":"2020-01-08T11:14:51","slug":"by-the-numbers-the-psychology-of-unemployment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.corporate-eye.com\/main\/by-the-numbers-the-psychology-of-unemployment\/","title":{"rendered":"By the Numbers: The Psychology of Unemployment"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\"Number<\/a><\/div>\n

It seems like every day begins with some news report on jobs and employment.\u00a0 It all runs together after a while, but the statistics fall into two categories:\u00a0 Jobs lost\/created, and People finding\/not finding jobs.\u00a0 There\u2019s a big difference in the two perspectives.<\/p>\n

Plus, each category has several different flavors.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a super-speedy example of the kind of real-life information that\u2019s aggregated into statistical statements:<\/p>\n

Acme is making fewer widgets, so it needs fewer widget-makers, so those jobs are lost\u2014but only until or unless Acme needs more widgets.\u00a0 Acme\u2019s competitor A-Plus decides to make only automatic widgets from now on, so manual widget-maker jobs are gone forever there.\u00a0 However Acme decides to make special Fourth of July widgets this year, so there are some temporary manual widget-making jobs for the employees laid off by A-Plus.\u00a0 But<\/em> there are many widget-maker wannabes in the unemployment line who will be happy to work for less than the experienced Acme personnel.\u00a0 Meanwhile, A-Plus needs robotics-nerds, pronto, and there aren\u2019t enough to go around, so headhunters are burning up their cell phones . . .<\/p>\n

And if you are a laid-off English teacher or a downsized stock broker, the whole widget thing is fantastically irrelevant anyway.\u00a0 Aggregate numbers are next to meaningless for real job-hunters–but they contribute to the serious psychological effects of being unemployed.\u00a0 The worse the news sounds, the more hopeless things may seem if you\u2019re one of the statistics.<\/p>\n

In the run-up to Christmas 2009, it was easy to miss this important New York Times<\/em> story <\/a>on the effects of unemployment, but it’s message is summarized in the title:\u00a0 Poll reveals depth and trauma of joblessness.<\/strong><\/p>\n

More than half of the poll respondents reported depression, anxiety, and insomnia along with their more practical problems such as the threat of foreclosure and the loss of health insurance.\u00a0 So not only is the volume of applicants steeply increasing at many companies, more than a few of those job-seekers may be struggling not only to make ends meet but also to cope with the psychological repercussions of unemployment.<\/p>\n

What does that mean in terms of recruiting and the corporate Careers site?\u00a0 Big unemployment numbers are made up of real people who go to company sites because they really need jobs.\u00a0 Which seems worth thinking about.\u00a0 I can\u2019t point to experts or examples of best practices in this area\u2014unfortunately there don\u2019t seem to be any.\u00a0 But here are some possibilities I thought up:<\/p>\n