'As if the stigma is not bad enough..'
'..they make you sit in the window so that all who pass the Job Centre can see you waiting for your state handout.
I have been made redundant several times - The worst thing is signing on at the local Job Centre.'
According to Flettie, responding to a posting on redundancy.
With so many people joining the dole queue - is there any less of a stigma attached to being unemployed? Is it perhaps less isolating than it used to be thanks to social networking on the internet?
Shadow Chancellor George Osborne Shadow Secretary for Work and Pensions Chris Grayling may be on PM tonight talking jobs.
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I agree. But since I've been using www.sevenload.co.uk I found a job through just meeting people online. I made a group about unemployment and got some tips...
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To refer to someone a 'Paky' is offenensive if you would not say it directly to the person's face, just as refering to another person as 'Gerry' or 'Paddy' would be taken as inappropiate if German or Irish.
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I'm 63 and was made redundant from previous job in IT consultancy, but I'm not eligible for job-seeker's allowance because I have a (private sector) pension. True, but it's not at all adequate to cover current expenses, and I can't get Govt pension till I'm 65.
I'm caught in a vicious cash squeeze, but nobody cares.
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As a former HR professional and someone who lost a job in the last recession, perhaps I can speak to both sides.
Signing on is a hugely uncomfortable experience, I am sure it is no different now than it was in the 90s. Mind you, you didn't have to sit in the window then.
But we didn't have the internet then, I will look at that with some interest.
Speaking for my former profession, I would say that people tend to be sympathetic to those who lose jobs in times of recession, less so to those who have no job during times of full employment such as the years running up to 2007.
In either case, HR people tend to make enquiries when considering taking on people who have been made redundant and try to divine the reason behind it.
In times of large scale redundancies, economics drive companies to remove groups of staff for no other reason than money.
Small, isolated redundancies, particularly during times of full employment are often regarded with some suspicion and it may be that the employees removed were actually poor performers "dressed up" as redundancies.
Experience suggests people may be have a 50/50 chance of being right on that one.
Personally, I generally gave people the benefit of the doubt.
Unfortunately some people do require a lot of retraining as they exit old fashioned industries.
I once interviewed someone for a job who, having been made redundant from his last job, was convinced he was the best person for the job despite his (IT) work experience/qualifications being 10 years out of date and he had made no effort to update his skills. In fact, when he wasn't appointed he slapped in a complaint, saying I was racist. (Sigh) He didn't get far on that one as 9 out of the 10 people interviewed were from his ethnic group, as was the successful candidate.
Anyway, as was said on the PM programme tonight, the government's offer of money will make no difference at all for a long time, if ever.
Big companies stopped recruiting in 2007/early 2008. Even if they don't make redundancies, they will recruit very few people during 2009.
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I was made redundant in 2007 a month after I turned 50. I felt no stigma, though colleagues who were made redundant at the same time found things more difficult.
I was unemployed for just over a year and have been working (albeit part time)since May 2008. It's worth remembering that a "job for life", common for my parent's generation, is a thing of the past, people change jobs a lot more these days.
I looked upon my experience as a belated "gap year" followed by a career change, from IT into Quality Management.
I found the staff at the JobCentre helpful, but only to a point, they aren't really equipped to help people wanting anything other than the most menial jobs.
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There is a stigma - my husband could not face signing on when he lost his job (victim of Conservative council spending cuts on social work, since you ask). With 30 years experience he was seen by prospective employers as too expensive to re-employ or was uncomfortably older than his potential managers so although he had great references and 12 interviews in 9 months he kept being rejected with thin excuses for feedback.
Finally he applied for a job in the same field but at a lower level to run a project in a terrible mess. He is now happily sorting it out and his employers are thrilled to have him. But to get there he had to survive every day for nine months pretending he had a reason to get out of bed (which he did, every day) and get stuck into putting together yet another presentation or doing another personality test, aware that there was every likelihood of being knocked back again. There is no stigma-free way to tell your in-laws, or the parents at the school gate, or concerned friends even, that you are out of work.
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My last experience of being unemployed was in the early 1990s when I left University, but this completely destroyed my self-confidence then, and I found it very difficult to recover from the experience.
One of the worst things was being forced to show evidence of being available and actively seeking work to the benefits agency at the time. I applied for every single job advertised at the time, and kept every communication from wouldn't-be employers.
Most of the jobs I applied for were very basic, low skill ones and being and Oxford graduate with a masters degree was absolutely no help in gaining work; in fact this often drew ridicule from employers. Others felt the need to make disparaging remarks in their rejection letters which didn't help keep ones spirits up or maintain all important self-esteem.
Worst of all was the aggressive campaign waged by the then Conservative government against 'scroungers' which made one very self conscious about being seen signing on, or admitting to college friends or relatives that one was unemployed, with no prospects in sight. One also lived in fear of being 'shopped' whilst doing unpaid work and pursuing vocational training, neither of which was allowed whilst signing on (there was an active TV ad campaign at the time urging people to report anyone they suspected of being 'scroungers', even though in practice this was the only way of breaking the vicious circle).
Those college contemporaries who did succeed in forging ahead with their careers at the time were those who had affluent parents to support them through periods of unpaid work experience, and didn't have to go through the soul-destroying DHSS mill. I could have returned to live at home and ask my parents to support me, but then the unemployment situation in my native South Wales was even more dire than the leafy Home Counties; my father had taken voluntary redundancy following the destruction of the steel industry, hence my need to sign on and live independently.
I hope the media and future governments will never again attempt to vilify the unemployed.
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