Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

I'm always curious about what people who are members of the 'long term unemployed' are doing while unemployed.

There are big chunks of people who are unemployed with two strikes against them, they are under-educated and they are single parents.

This double whammy kills you because if you aren't working you can't pay for day care, if you can't pay for day care then a big chunk of your time is taken up in providing day care (depending on the age of your children).

So if you pick out the 'edge' case where you have:

two work capable parents

both with college degrees

fewer than four children (all over the age of 5)

There is an "easy" answer, upgrade your skills and/or education, get a job. I know a couple in Texas who did exactly that, the husband, went to community college, transferred to the state university system, and they are now 3 years unemployed and 1 year away from being a newly minted EE with a paid summer internship under their belt. They have recruiters talking to them at school but on my and others advice they are going to finish the degree before actually taking anyone up on those offers.

I've talked with people for whom 'job hunting' wasn't an issue, until it was, and they only realized a year later that their previous experience really wasn't all that applicable to anything really.

Hi, I'm under-educated and a single parent of a special needs child. I was a stay-at-home mom (my son was 4) when a looming divorce prompted me to re-enter the workforce.

Nobody wanted to hire me, so I started a company.

Now (almost 4 years later) not only am I employable, but I get 2-5 contacts from people who want to talk about hiring me per month.

I'm really tired of hearing the "poor single mom" drum beaten. I did it, despite my child's special needs, despite a medical condition that limits my employment options, and plenty of other challenges other people can do it to. If it's hard to figure out, and I just haven't noticed that it is, tell me and I'll write a book.

Putting myself in an employer's shoes, I'd be leery of hiring anyone who's been long-term unemployed. What does one do with the time? When I couldn't find a job, I created one. While not everyone is predisposed to entrepreneurship, surely a few months in to not finding employment, any sufficiently determined person would at least try it.

I'm not saying they'll all succeed -- but I'm not sure you have to succeed. When you start your own venture, you go from being unemployed to being employed, and that solves the original problem -- you are no longer a member of the long-term unemployed.

I think its fair to say that someone who's had no break in their unemployment more than a year (assuming they aren't a full-time student, seriously ill, a stay-at-home parent, etc.) probably has something wrong with how they approach becoming employed, and a lot of those somethings would also negatively impact their performance as an employee. It's fine to be skeptical, and it's not a slight against the under-educated or single parents.

"I think its fair to say that someone who's had no break in their unemployment more than a year (assuming they aren't a full-time student, seriously ill, a stay-at-home parent, etc.) probably has something wrong with how they approach becoming employed, and a lot of those somethings would also negatively impact their performance as an employee."

I suspect that captures the essence of why companies have this sort of policy. And, as you point out, its pretty straight forward to be "employed" if only self employed by creating your own business and running it.

"I'm always curious about what people who are members of the 'long term unemployed' are doing while unemployed."

School. School, school, school...

First I had to learn to program, but that wouldn't be enough. Companies want university degrees -- no one hires a relatively smart kid and trains them anymore -- and I lacked the money for university, so I would have to get into IT or a specialized field.

The web was getting big but the early 2000s bubble had burst by the time I had a solid understanding of the LAMP stack, so with no experience I was competing with people who had been doing professional web dev for years. That meant no work, so back to school.

Jobs were opening up in IT, so I studied network administration. Potential offers went sour because I didn't know Office, so I kept at school for that. Around that time HP laid off 2,000 engineers, many of whom were experienced IT people. After that, it was difficult to find any ads for IT work in the area.

I secured a 3-year unpaid internship where I worked with GIS, but every GIS job requires a university Geography degree or more prior experience than I have.

There were usually a few jobs open for Autocad users, so I took Autocad courses. By the time I had completed the courses, the job offers required prior work experience.

In all that time I managed to get one job that got me enough money to get a 4-year CS degree. I couldn't find any work in the next six months, so I went back to school to refresh my IT skills and finish up a 2-year math degree. With that done, the job market looks worse than it did last year, so I'll probably be going back to school in the fall.

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