Long Term Unemployed

After the budget last night you can definitely see none of the pollies have been unemployed for any great length of time.

I want to impress on them the depression involved in long term unemployment.  It's not as simple as "get a job" in many cases.  I've been looking for work in the past and applying for jobs willy nilly.  Over a six month period in 2001, I applied for about 140 jobs.  I got about 35 no-thank-you replies from the employers, and the rest were just ignored.  I'm not sure what's worst.  An employer taking out a classified ad in the employment columns is sometimes subjected to over a hundred applications, and some small employers simply don't have the resources to reply.  But then again, each of those applications has been the result of an investment of maybe a couple of hours time from the applicants, so they probably do at least deserve acknowledgement.

What IS bad, however is the arrival of a no-thank-you letter, as it's a constant reminder that you are not wanted by that particular employer.  A few letters are fair enough, but when they keep going for month after month, it certainly leads to depression.  All you can do is pick yourself up off the ground and keep applying for more jobs, but that's something that's often easier said than done.

Worse, I suppose is when you happen to actually land an interview.  The hopes rise, and you get yourself in to the employer on time and with a shiny face.  This often involves quite a few hours of your time, plus the cost of travel to and from the workplace.  In many cases, unfortunately, the employers didn't even have the manners to call back and say I was unsuccesful after an interview.  I can live with ignoring an unsuccesful written application, but after an unsuccesful interview, where you've gotten yourself along to the employer's place of business at your expense and on your own time, a reply is definitely warranted.  How many people are they interviewing, for goodness sake?

To impose on the long term unemployed the requirement to apply for ten jobs a fortnight is crazy.  For a start, I'd doubt there'd be ten jobs a fortnight I'd have any prospect of applying for in the first place.  This means you'd have to be applying for jobs that you've got no hope of getting.  Crazy for the employer who has to deal with the applications (shred them?) and crazy for the applicant who is going to be constantly reminded of his or her unemployability.

As I mentioned, each no-thank-you letter can be taken as a personal slight.  That's yet another employer who doesn't want to employ me.  Assuming about a 30% reply rate, that's three letters a fortnight arriving in the mailbox reminding you of yet another employer who doesn't want to give you a job.  That might be all right for a month or two, but it'd be downright demoralising after a year.

What would the pollies know about this, however?  Well, they could ask us.