'Finding a support group,' and no job-hunter should be without one.

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Two thirds of a depression

When you are out of work during a prosperous time like the present, it's easy to get the feeling that everyone in the country has a job except you.

As you walk the streets, seeing everyone laughing around you, with no one guessing the depth of your lostness or sorrow at losing your job, it can be a mighty lonely feeling.

You Are Not Alone
So, let's put that feeling in some kind of perspective, with actual numbers. Turn to the so-called Great Depression. During the height of that Depression, which was 1933, the government says there were over 12 million Americans out of work. We all would agree that's an awful lot of people out of work at the same time.

Now turn to the present time, and what do we see? We see 7 million Americans currently out of work, which is close to two-thirds the number of people who were out of work at the height of the Depression. Whoops!

Why didn't you know that? Well, it's not ever popular to talk about how many people are out of work. Year in or year out, regardless of whether the Republicans or the Democrats are in power, it's more popular to talk about the unemployment rate. 'Rate' is so clinical, so objective, so removed from the thought of actual souls going through a very difficult period in their lives.

Also 'rate' can be made to sound good! For example, the unemployment rate in 1933 was 24.86%, which sounds terrible, while the unemployment rate recently has been hovering around 4.4%, which sounds great.

Hiding Suffering
We rarely think to ask: 24.86% of what? And, 4.4% of what? The answer is: "the number of people in the labor force at that time." Hence, what can vary greatly, over time.

In 1933, 12,830,000 people were out of work, but because the labor force was much smaller than it is today – there were only 51,590,000 people in the labor force at that time – this worked out to a 24.86% unemployment rate.

Today, the government admits there are at least 6,083,132 people out of work, but because the labor force is much larger than it was in 1933 – there are now 138,253,000 people in the labor force – this has worked out to a 4.4% unemployment rate. 4.4% sounds like a small figure, but it masks a large figure – over six million people out of work – beneath it. And it masks a lot of suffering.

Unhappily the true figure is even worse than that. The government now counts unemployment in a different way than it did in 1933; it no longer considers people to be 'unemployed' if they've not looked for a job in the last four weeks. Those people, 1,200,000 in number currently, are now classified as "discouraged workers." (!?!!?) Add their number to the unemployment figure currently, as any sane person would, and you find there are actually 7,283,132 people out of work in this country, currently.

So, you are anything but alone, if you are out of work in these prosperous times.

Don't Go It Alone
But you can sink into a depression – not the economic kind, but the emotional kind – if you try to go it alone. You need to go find some of those seven million other unemployed, and work together with them on your job-hunt.

It's an exercise called 'finding a support group,' and no job-hunter should be without one. Here's how to find a support group:

(1) Ask about local groups. Such groups are likely to be found in religious centers, or at your local college or community college, or at the State employment office, or your local Chamber of Commerce, or in the pink/white pages of your phone book under such well-known names as "Forty Plus," "Experience Unlimited," etc.
(2) Check the newspapers. Look in the business section of your local newspaper, all week long, as they often list group meetings of job-hunters. Also check out the National Business Employment Weekly, available at your local bookstore or newsstand. ($3.95 an issue) They have a weekly "Calendar of Career Events" which lists a sampling of support groups around the nation. You may, to your great surprise, find one that's near you
(3) Check with local career counselors. While they primarily offer individual services, some also run support-groups. Before deciding to go with such a counselor, however, please read pages 306-315 in the back of the 1999 What Color Is Your Parachute? to learn how to appraise career counselors.
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