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Know Why Your Parent Is Out of Work
It is very important to understand the reason your parent is out of work. This makes it easier to understand how long it may take them to get a new job. There are some changes that your family may go through no matter what the reason is. You should be prepared for these things so that you won’t be worried or surprised. It’s good to know that most people who are out of work do not stay unemployed for more than a few months. Many times they go back to work even sooner.
There is no one type of person who becomes unemployed. It could happen to anyone—men, women, old people, young people, people who dropped out of high school, people with college degrees, workers who have just started a job, or employees who have been with the same company for thirty years. In January 2023, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate was 3.4 percent. This means that there were 5.7 million Americans who were considered legally able to work but who did not have jobs. There are five main reasons, though, why your parent might be unemployed. They might have gotten laid off, gone on strike, had or have an illness or injury, gotten fired, or chosen to leave.
Recessions
When a recession occurs, many workers are laid off because companies are closing or cutting back. A recession is a temporary falling off of business activity. During a recession, lots of people are unemployed and jobs are scarce. For a person laid off in a recession, finding a new job can be very difficult. If your parent is laid off during this time, it may take months or even years to find similar work with similar pay.
When a worker is laid off, a number of things can happen. Sometimes, the company will try to help the worker by continuing to pay their salary and other benefits for weeks or months after the layoff. Some companies help laid-off workers find new jobs or help them learn new skills for a different type of work. Many times, however, the company cannot provide any help. These laid-off workers are on their own. They may collect unemployment benefits from the government or use money from their personal savings to support their family until a new job is found.
The COVID-19 pandemic created a roller-coaster job market beginning in early 2020, with companies laying off many workers. Businesses closed, especially those that served customers (like restaurants). The travel industry nearly shut down, as people stayed home and companies held meetings over Zoom. In the United States, the unemployment rate in April 2020 was a shocking 14.7 percent. An economic recession spread across the world. To help keep the economy afloat, government assistance programs gave low- or no-interest loans to small businesses, protected renters from eviction, extended tax benefits to support paid sick leave, and created other programs meant to support businesses and their newly unemployed workers.
In early 2021, when the economy opened up again and business picked up, employers looking for workers discovered that many of their former employees had already found new jobs or had decided not to return to their old ones. A number of older employees retired rather than returning to a workforce where the risk of catching COVID-19 still remained. The trend has been called the Great Resignation. A combination of employers rehiring workers and many people leaving the workforce meant that by early 2022, the unemployment rate had returned to what it was before the pandemic.
Unemployment and Layoffs
Unfortunately, once your parent is laid off, it can be very difficult to find another position at the same salary. For instance, when many people must compete for a job, employers tend to offer less money. People who have been at the same job for many years may find that they have to settle for a lower level job with much less pay.
Changes in Technology
Changes in technology can cause layoffs. If robots can build cars faster and more cheaply than people can, a car factory may lay off workers to replace them with machines. If your parent can’t learn to use their skills in a new way, they could be laid off. Sometimes, people continue their education in order to improve their knowledge and skills by taking courses on computers and new technology. Unfortunately, these activities may not be enough to prevent them from being laid off.
Work Cycles
In some jobs, workers are needed only at certain times of the year. There is not enough work to keep an employee busy all year long. Agriculture (farming), for example, may offer seasonal employment. At harvest time, many workers are needed to pick and pack crops. But once the harvesting is done, the workers are no longer needed. They are usually laid off.
Your parent may be employed with seasonal work like doing tax return preparation in the winter or substitute teaching during the school year. If this is the case, your parent probably knows that they won’t be needed long-term. Therefore, your parent may even expect to be laid off because of the nature of the business.
Gig Work
“Gig work” (also known as “freelance” work) is an increasing trend, where workers are not legally considered employees of the company they work for, but are rather independent contractors who are paid for the work they do. This saves the company money because they don’t have to provide the workers with benefits like health insurance or equipment or office space essential for the job. Gig work also gives the company flexibility to pay the workers only when they are needed, and contracts are often short-term. Ridesharing services like Uber and food delivery services like Doordash are examples of the gig economy, where workers own and maintain their own vehicles and pay for their own health care. Gig work gives workers more flexibility to set their own hours and often to accept jobs only when they want to, but it also means they can go through periods of unemployment.
Strikes
When people leave the workplace together as a protest against how they are being treated by the company, it is called a strike. Most strikes are organized by unions. Unions are groups of working people that get together to make job conditions better for everyone in the group.
People go on strike for many reasons. For example, they might be striking to get better pay or to protest having to work in unhealthy or unsafe conditions. Striking is not quitting. The strike ends when the union and the employers reach an agreement. If the strike is successful, workers’ job conditions tend to improve. If the strike is unsuccessful, the workers will return to their jobs without any gain. Or they could lose their jobs permanently.
A strike can end after a few hours, or a strike can last for many months. While a person is on strike, they may find another job that lasts for just a short time. But usually the union tries to help the workers support their families. Sometimes, a union puts aside some of the money that the members have donated into a “strike fund.” Workers on strike can get money from the fund for rent, food, and other family expenses.
Illness and Injury
If your parent is injured—regardless of whether the accident occurred in the workplace—they may have to take some time off from work. This will happen if the injury makes it impossible for your parent to do their job. For example, a person who does heavy labor cannot work with an injured back. A worker who types at a computer all day may have to take some time off if they break a hand or arm.
If your parent is very sick, they may also have to stop going to work. Your parent may be told by their doctor that it is impossible to continue working. Cancer and other long-term illnesses, as well as mental illness, may cause a worker to stay home or in the hospital for a long time.
Some people have disability insurance. If they are injured or ill and unable to work, they will be paid by the insurance company. An insurance check will not be as much money as a paycheck, but it will help pay some of a person’s expenses. The person will receive insurance money for as long as they cannot work.
If your parent sits for long periods of time at work, your parent may develop back pain that could affect their comfort and ability to do similar work in the future. Alternatively, if your parent does work that requires heavy lifting, your parent could face future difficulties in the workplace because of the stress they put on their body.
Fired for Cause
Being fired for cause is probably the most upsetting way to lose a job. A worker is told to leave their job because the employer is not satisfied with the worker’s job performance. Some reasons a person might be fired are:
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Frequently coming to work late
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Incompetence (not doing a good job)
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Drug or alcohol abuse
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Not getting along with other workers
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Stealing from the company
An employer will sometimes give an employee a warning if they are at risk for being fired. This gives the employee a chance to improve. If your parent ends up in this situation and wants to keep their job, your parent will try to improve their behavior.
It is possible that a person who is fired for cause may also get in trouble with the law. If someone is fired for stealing, the company may report this to the police. The employee may be arrested and tried in court for the crime.
Unfair Firings
Being fired for cause doesn’t always mean a worker has done something wrong. Sometimes, an employer unfairly accuses a worker of bad work habits or of doing a poor job. A person who did a perfectly good job may be fired. Perhaps they were not getting along with the boss, the boss discriminated against them, or a supervisor was harassing the worker and the worker complained. Your parent may even face this dilemma simply by being misunderstood and disliked by a boss with a different personality type.
A good worker may be fired for knowing about something illegal that is going on in the workplace. Fellow workers may be cheating the company or stealing. People who are involved with something illegal might fire a worker who could turn them in. This worker will lose their job for “knowing too much.”
Losing a job under these circumstances can be very difficult. A person will be out of a job even though they followed the rules. There can be more problems when someone who is fired looks for another job. It is difficult for these workers to explain to prospective employers why they lost their last job.
People who are out of work can receive insurance money from the government to help support them while they are looking for new jobs. But if a worker has been fired, there is no guarantee that they will receive these unemployment benefits. A person who has been fired, whether or not the firing was fair, will have some difficult times ahead. In cases of discrimination or harassment, the worker may be able to appeal their case to a government agency that fights discrimination. If the workers wins their case, they may be able to receive unemployment benefits.
Choosing to Leave
Not all workers who become unemployed are told to leave by their employer. Some people decide to leave on their own. They may be unhappy with their jobs for many reasons.
If a person has special training or education that they don’t use, that person may feel underemployed or overqualified. This happens when workers are not able to use their best skills at their jobs and they are unable to work to their full potential. The worker may quit the job to get some training for a job with better pay, or one that is more interesting.
Workers also quit because they are dissatisfied with their jobs. Perhaps the job is not what the person had been promised at first, or there might have been changes in the staff or in the job that have made working there unpleasant.
There are other reasons to leave a job. An employee might be facing discrimination in the workplace because of race, religion, sex, age, or sexual orientation. Sometimes, a person decides that the discrimination has made the workplace impossible to work in, so it’s better to leave.
While there may be plenty of good reasons to leave a job, before quitting, your parent will probably consider the financial consequences of doing so, such as having to find alternative ways to pay for living expenses until a new job is found.