Unemployment: whose problem?

Quote
“A man willing to work, and unable to find work, is perhaps the saddest sight that fortune's inequality exhibits under this sun.”  Thomas Carlyle

News

Public sector job cuts in Britain reached a new record, as 111,000 people were laid off between April and June.  Decisions to make people redundant are taken primarily on economic grounds, but the experience and impact of unemployment goes far beyond the economic realm.  Being out of work carries huge relational costs.  It puts stress on family and couple relationships through the loss of household income, uncertainty about the future, and in some cases from enforced role changes (e.g. when the woman works longer hours and the man has to carry more of the domestic and childcare work). 

The stigma of unemployment brings psychological pressure, causing to a loss of self-esteem, depression and even suicide.  In the long term it can lead to welfare dependency – particularly damaging for young people who are unable to build up their skills, or begin and provide for a family.  Unemployment is isolating, leaving people with neither work colleagues nor the funds to socialise with salaried friends.

At the community level, the gap between those in work and those out of work often creates social and political tensions.  When a major employer in a town goes out of business, it can decimate the whole community – which happened in many British mining towns in the 1980s.

Unemployment is generally viewed as a political and economic issue.  So governments ensure people receive financial help, and use fiscal measures to create jobs.  But from a relational perspective, what might be done differently? 

Arguably, the locus of responsibility and initiative could be shifted down to a more local level.  The less unemployment is treated as a problem for central government, the more responsive and adaptive the help can be to local conditions and personal circumstances.  City councils could develop initiatives to encourage people and businesses in the local community to share in the challenge of keeping people in work. Such relational responses to unemployment have the potential to reduce the gaps between those in and out of work, and build stronger community relationships as well.

Read on...

15 years ago, the Relationships Foundation set up Citylife (now renamed Allia) to pioneer Employment Bonds – a mechanism for people to invest in creating jobs in local communities.  An article in the Guardian tells the story; read it here.

Walk the talk

Unemployment is a nationwide problem, but is there some way that you can make a difference to just one unemployed person?  You may not be able to offer a job, but could you visit and encourage someone you know who is out of work, or volunteer with a local charity that teaches job skills to young people? 

The last word
From the Bible, Ecclesiastes 2:24 “A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God”.