How unemployment warps your personality over time -

[jtuck004]

WASHINGTON -- Long periods of unemployment drain our bank accounts and weaken the economy. New research suggests extended joblessness could also dampen our personalities. And that can make it harder to find more work.

A study published this month in the Journal of Applied Psychology examined a sample of 6,769 German adults -- 3,733 men and 3,036 women -- who took the same personality test twice in a four-year window. During the experiment, 251 subjects were unemployed for less than a year; 210 faced joblessness for one to four years.
...


"Unemployment," researchers wrote, "has one of the strongest impacts on well-being ... often lasting beyond the period of unemployment and being comparable with that of becoming disabled."

The findings in Germany have domestic implications. One characteristic of America's slow economic recovery is the extraordinary number of people who have fallen into the ranks of the long-term unemployed, those unable to find jobs for 27 weeks or more. An estimated 3.4 million fit this description, by the Economic Policy Institute's measure.
...

Here: http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20150228/business/150229002/

Interesting, in that we have never allowed this many to languish without opportunity, just to keep the assets of the rest inflated in a pretend recovery.

Our kid's kids are gonna pay a big price for our sloth and greed.

[raccoon]

1. Can't see that article unless you register. nt

[jtuck004]

2. Another link via 1st result in google, which brought up more of interest...

Here.

Thank you for pointing that out. I try to avoid stuff like that, and it didn't do it on two machines here, but that doesn't test everyone's access.

[raccoon]

4. Thanks. I read the article. As one who's been through periods of

unemployment, I strongly second these statements:

The mental effects of long-term unemployment could make you less confident on the job hunt.

Losing your job can feel like losing your sense of community.

[jtuck004]

5. A lot of us have, and are going through this. n/t

[KG]

3. was 5 years un- & under-employed - i've found no redeeming lesson from the experience

back to work at my previous career. but i now have no confidence in my (or this country's) economic future

[KingCharlemagne]

12. After Katrina, the lesson is clear: it's every man and woman for him- or

herself.

Yay, capitalism!

[Trillo]

6. The bankers are allowed to create money by making a ledger entry.

Take that away from them, put it back in the government's control, create the money and send everyone a guaranteed income that is enough to cover basic needs of food, housing, and medical care.

[magical thyme]

7. initially, you finally get to rest, get caught up on stuff,

and do projects you've wanted to do for a long time, while looking for work. You have savings to keep your life relatively comfortable. You volunteer at local organizations to try to re-build a network because your old network was blown apart by the industry crash.

And then you realize nobody wants you any more and that your life is pretty much over. The other volunteers are all comfortably retired and shun you. (One actually ended up with 2 mailing lists circulation; I was on the one made my the nice person, and deliberately kept off the one by the old bag that hated me because why not). Hiring managers are outright hostile, "what's wrong with YOU that you're still unemployed?" You will be looked down on, if not outright dumped, by family and people you thought were your friends. Former colleagues may outright tell you that "you sound like a loser," or "you've worked for 2 companies in a row that went under. nobody's going to touch you now." Your savings are dwindling faster than you projected. Dreams and plans are deferred and then, you realize, lost for good.

If you're "lucky" you end up grossly underemployed, looking forward to a lifetime of being jerked around, treated like you are stupid or a loser (or a stupid loser) barely able to scrape out a living, and knowing you'll likely never get to retire.

If you're anything like me, you may go through a phase where you dive into re-educating yourself for a second career, only to find the state university lied about the job prospects, the government statistics lied about growth in the field, the local human resources lied about salary ranges, and that you've taken on debt that you will now never be able to pay off.

And your life has become an ongoing crime wave, lost to outright white-collar fraud, identity theft rings, and blue collar stealing as well.

And then, yeah, you stop giving a fuck. Why bother. It's all over, anyway.

[Orrex]

10. I would call BS on all of that

If it weren't 100% true.

I would add only that you can also look forward to occasional scoldings even on DU because you lacked the resources and foresight to "make yourself indispensible" to your employer or to prospective employers.

[KingCharlemagne]

13. I sure wish you would make this an OP of its own. Force the pro-capitalism

crowd to defend the cesspool their system has created and continues to create.

[hunter]

8. Employment in the U.S.A. warps your personality over time. But so does poverty.

Very few people are able to find the sweet spot between the two where life is comfortable and employment is satisfying.

90% of all jobs are crap, damaging to both the earth's natural environment and the human spirit.

Our current definitions of economic "productivity" blow chunks and are directly proportional to the damage we do to this earth and ourselves.

[jtuck004]

9. "Our current definitions... " > Need work. Thank you. n/t

[KingCharlemagne]

11. 95% of the gains from this so-called 'recovery' from 2009-present have accrued to the top 1%. At

the same time, 1% of this country's population controls 40% of its wealth and 10% of this country's population controls 80% of its wealth.

There is so much slack in this economy, i.e., unemployment, underemployment and soft demand, that there is almost no inflation and the economy continues to run the very real risk of entering a protracted deflationary spiral with only one or two sharp shocks or crises.