Do you know anyone laid off for an extended period of time? What was their situation?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree. You can’t be too picky. My neighbor will only accept certain roles and he’s been unemployed for 15 months now.

This is what I wonder about certain people, to be honest.

I make about $200K a year. I work in a weird, kind of niche field that is typically in demand, but the higher salary jobs are harder to get. I regularly get LinkedIn messages from people trying to hire for roles making $100-130K. I’d totally be open to taking a job like that if I had to. Much rather be working, staying busy, and getting benefits. I tell myself I’ve made it work on $40K, $60K, $100K, all the way to my current salary (and I’ve only been working nine years).

I understand this would likely be different if you had really high fixed costs, lots of kids, high mortgage, etc.

You sound like you don’t have children to support. I’m not “too good” to make $40k but my family can’t eat on that.

I do not and completely understand. I guess for me it would come down to, am I making more than what I’d need to pay for childcare costs. Because isn’t even $40K better than what you get for unemployment?

You’re asking if it’s better to offer the doorman $2 rather than $0 when the cover charge is $5. I guess, but you still ain’t getting in.

The reality is you have to cut expenses. Too many people try to continue their prior standard of living with no income coming in.

There's a limit to how much you can cut. Someone living in a big house with cleaners, regular takeout, overseas vacations, and two newer cars has a lot more room to cut than someone on a townhouse with one car who camps and DIYs everything. If your lifestyle is already pretty modest you can't cut much. You actually do need a job that covers basic expenses.

I've done the math on this in case I lose my job because my spouse only makes $65k. After taxes that's a bit under $4k/month. The cheapest family health insurance, which would require changing 100% of our providers from MY work's cheapest provider, would be over $500/month.

Our mortgage is under $1400, we have one car with no loan, we buy groceries at Aldi. I think we could get by on $3200 most months, but we wouldn't be able to save, and would have to dip into savings for big expenses like home and car repairs. I don't think $40k can support a family. That's "apply for benefits" level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree. You can’t be too picky. My neighbor will only accept certain roles and he’s been unemployed for 15 months now.

I’m not really that picky. I wasn’t even making 6 figures when I was laid off, and will be fine with less. I mostly want the health insurance. But once you’re in your 40s, they don’t want you for the more junior level roles.

I’m the PP and I get what you’re saying. Just because my neighbor has been picky about roles he applies for doesn’t mean he would be hired for something a bit lower on the ladder. It’s very possible he wouldn’t be. As my DH is facing layoffs now, it’s scary to think that he could be in his last decently compensated position. But that absolutely could be the truth.

[Anonymous]

Eleven months for my friend in marketing. Old company got rid of the entire marketing department. Friend applied everywhere before landing something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I constantly see posts on LinkedIn and Reddit where people state they have been unemployed for months / years: in most cases, they were laid off and despite applying for (in their words) thousands of jobs they are unable to find employment. This is just terrifying to me!

Do you know anyone like this and if so, what was their situation/career before being long-term unemployed?

Software developer. Loser like late 40’s

H1bs and opts overwhelming jobs. No spot for older developer. He was canned and. It hired for a long time

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My dad started out in data programming in the late 1960s, then was a project lead, then systems analyst, then senior systems analyst. He was laid off three times for lengthy periods due to the collapse of manufacturing in the rust belt. The first time was in the early 80s for about 9 months, when my mom was a SAHM. The second time was about the same length of time around ‘91. My mom was working then, but my brother was in college and I was a year away from starting college, so they were facing big expenses. In fact, my mom had gone back to work specifically to help pay for our college educations. The third time was about a year and a half, starting in ‘99 or 2000, right after my parents had paid for my wedding. My dad was about to turn 60 when he was hired by his final employer. He had a 1hr 20 min commute each way, driving. Public transportation wasn’t an option. He was incredibly lucky that his final employer was an insurance company that offered great benefits and treated their employees (and even retirees!) extremely well. I’m so glad he had a good experience in his final decade of working.

My parents were always very careful with their money, so the lean times were stressful and scary for them, but we always had all of our needs met, lived a middle class lifestyle, and they saved and invested well for their retirement. They really benefited from living in a LCOL area.

OMG. You accepted money for college and wedding?! Shame on you. Why didn’t you pay for these things yourself?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My dad started out in data programming in the late 1960s, then was a project lead, then systems analyst, then senior systems analyst. He was laid off three times for lengthy periods due to the collapse of manufacturing in the rust belt. The first time was in the early 80s for about 9 months, when my mom was a SAHM. The second time was about the same length of time around ‘91. My mom was working then, but my brother was in college and I was a year away from starting college, so they were facing big expenses. In fact, my mom had gone back to work specifically to help pay for our college educations. The third time was about a year and a half, starting in ‘99 or 2000, right after my parents had paid for my wedding. My dad was about to turn 60 when he was hired by his final employer. He had a 1hr 20 min commute each way, driving. Public transportation wasn’t an option. He was incredibly lucky that his final employer was an insurance company that offered great benefits and treated their employees (and even retirees!) extremely well. I’m so glad he had a good experience in his final decade of working.

My parents were always very careful with their money, so the lean times were stressful and scary for them, but we always had all of our needs met, lived a middle class lifestyle, and they saved and invested well for their retirement. They really benefited from living in a LCOL area.

OMG. You accepted money for college and wedding?! Shame on you. Why didn’t you pay for these things yourself?

+1. I grew up in that area around that time and it was far from expected that parents paid for college and weddings. And if their parents had been laid off recently, which was very normal, forget about it.