They key is continuing education and self-improvement. You are only as marketable as you make yourself. If work as a widget- waxer tails off and you don't feel like moving to where it's still going strong, then it's time to learn another job skill. Complacency and resting on your laurels only exacerbates unemployment.
A sense of personal responsibility helps, also. Always blaming the gubment or the factory or the union or minorities or bad luck for your employment woes only accounts for energy better focused on solutions. I have personally never spent a day unemployed since the age of 13, and not because I haven't experienced layoffs, office closings, etc. If I lost my job on a Tuesday, I would immediately go to several local Temporary Agencies, apply, test, interview and accept SOME work for the following day, even if it wasn't what I wanted to do or at a rate I found acceptable. If I didn't like the job, at least I had access to the business machines necessary to research other opportunities, polish my resume, fax my introductory letters, email my references, or what have you. Sometimes, I would have to work long hours of overtime or multiple positions in order to make ends meet. You do what you have to do to get by and remain active in the job market.
This is quite a stark contrast to the mindset of those that are satisfied with lining up at the unemployment office for their weekly stipend with a list of excuses for why they haven't found a job yet under their arm. If you doubt what I say, take a look at the body language of those waiting in line at the unemployment office sometime. Slumped shoulders, heads down, wringing hands and mopey expressions that imply the weight of the world has beaten them down into submission. I dropped a friend off there a few times and was just amazed. Imagine that! Nobody is beating the door down for the chance to employ this vivacious group of go-getters!
A sense of personal responsibility helps, also. Always blaming the gubment or the factory or the union or minorities or bad luck for your employment woes only accounts for energy better focused on solutions. I have personally never spent a day unemployed since the age of 13, and not because I haven't experienced layoffs, office closings, etc. If I lost my job on a Tuesday, I would immediately go to several local Temporary Agencies, apply, test, interview and accept SOME work for the following day, even if it wasn't what I wanted to do or at a rate I found acceptable. If I didn't like the job, at least I had access to the business machines necessary to research other opportunities, polish my resume, fax my introductory letters, email my references, or what have you. Sometimes, I would have to work long hours of overtime or multiple positions in order to make ends meet. You do what you have to do to get by and remain active in the job market.
This is quite a stark contrast to the mindset of those that are satisfied with lining up at the unemployment office for their weekly stipend with a list of excuses for why they haven't found a job yet under their arm. If you doubt what I say, take a look at the body language of those waiting in line at the unemployment office sometime. Slumped shoulders, heads down, wringing hands and mopey expressions that imply the weight of the world has beaten them down into submission. I dropped a friend off there a few times and was just amazed. Imagine that! Nobody is beating the door down for the chance to employ this vivacious group of go-getters!
