Thanks to Michael Margolis/Get Storied for making me aware of this one:

Zachary Roth at Yahoo News’s The Lookout has undertaken the monumental task of putting a human face on unemployment — a storied look beyond the dismal numbers. In turn, Justin Ellis has chronicled The Lookout’s effort at Nieman Journalism Lab:

The Lookout was specifically looking for full personal stories, not just modular information that could be used to fill out copy. The result was unexpected: More than 6,000 responses through comments and email, so much that they went beyond a one-off story on long-term unemployment and created Down But Not Out Tumblr devoted to the personal narratives of the long-term unemployed. … Roth … asked readers for a full picture of their lives now, not just the salient bullet points on being jobless.

The site includes “50 of the most vivid stories” with plans to add more each week. Here Roth and team list three of the stories “that really stuck with us.”

These poignant stories indeed have far greater impact than the statistics we see constantly. The current situation becomes more and more unacceptable as we read of livelihoods and self-esteem being devastated. The jobless themselves, at least, may find a bit of comfort in reading each others’ stories and sharing their pain.

Through stories, we can pick up some other threads that may prove helpful — or at least eye-opening — to anyone facing unemployment:

• You’ll be much better off if you can anticipate and plan for a layoff.
• Much has been written in the last year about the unemployability of the unemployed (see this article in yesterday’s New York Times), and some of these stories underscore that sad phenomenon. Answers are scarce as to what can be done about that employer mindset. “It’s time to adjust the thinking that someone who has been unemployed is lazy or unemployable,” says one participant.
• Some employers expect the unemployed to be pursuing constructive projects and keeping skills current while jobless, not always easy to do when you’re worried about supporting your family.
• Networking really does work. So do recommendations and endorsements, “When you know someone who knows someone, who can vouch for you,” says one respondent, “you have a much better chance of getting a job with the company you want/in the field you want. “
• An employer’s market tends to make employers — even more than usual — arrogant and neglectful of basic courtesy, decency, and letting candidates know where they stand. The jobless will just make themselves angrier if they expect good etiquette and pleasantly surprised on the rare times they receive it. “Hiring managers hide behind blind ads, third-party web sites, and robot resume readers,” says one participant.
• Interview skills often matter more than actual job skills. “It doesn’t matter what skills you have, and it doesn’t matter what skills the employers say they want,” a participant writes. “What matters is having the skills that get you through the interview process.”
• Family closeness can be a saving grace, and it’s possible to generate happiness without a lot of expensive “stuff.” Wrote one participant, “We entertain ourselves and each other on very little, and I think we have made some memories that are priceless.”
• It’s often harder to get a new job if you’re older, especially in technology fields. One respondent considers himself old (for tech jobs) at 37! Age discrimination was a surprisingly (or perhaps not so) strong theme in many of these stories.
• Entrepreneurship is a possibility for the jobless, but that’s not easy either.
• Sometimes advanced education can actually hurt the candidate. “During the course of my unemployment, I have received consistent feedback that the problem lies not with my competencies or interview skills, but instead with the fact that I have an MBA,” says one respondent. “I’ve been told off-the-record from numerous companies that they are hesitant to spend extra money to hire qualified MBAs when job competition is so fierce.” Others told tales of polishing skills or training for a new field while unemployed, only to find their fields weren’t hiring or were hiring younger candidates with the same training. This observation is telling: “There is a lot of brain power sitting on the sidelines while you hear our politicians saying how we are not educating our people to be competitive.”
• The cost of childcare is a huge issue for many. Since folks are often forced to take jobs that pay far less than what they had before, they have great difficulty affording the childcare necessitated by their working. One participant spoke of having to turn down a job that would not have enabled him to afford childcare.
• Openness to relocation can help, but not always. A respondent points out that she landed a job because she was willing to relocate anywhere — “In this day and age the worker has to go where the jobs are” — but others who express the same willingness are not successful.

I encourage everyone to read these heartbreaking, depressing — and sometimes hopeful — stories because they reveal the current narrative our country is experiencing. I especially urge our corporate and government leaders to read them because if we ever get out of this mire, we need to look at ways to address issues like age discrimination, discrimination against the unemployed, and affordable childcare.