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\"Years after the Great Recession, the economy is still weak, and an unprecedented number of workers have sunk into long spells of unemployment, increasingly unlikely to get another good job in their lifetimes. Based on a careful crossnational comparison, \"Cut Loose\" describes the experiences of American and Canadian unemployed workers and the impact of the different social policies meant to help them. It focuses on a historically important group: autoworkers. Their well-paid factory jobs built a strong middle class in the decades after World War II. But today, they find themselves lost and beleaguered in a changed economy of greater inequality and risk, one that favors the well-educated--or well-connected. Their declining fortunes tell us something about what the white-collar workforce should expect in the years ahead, as job-killing technologies and the shipping of work overseas take away even more good jobs. Their frustrating experiences with retraining question whether education is really the cure-all it is made out to be. And their grim prospects in the job market reveal today's frenzied competition and harsh culture of judgment that has trickled down to a group long known for its strong belief in equality. \"Cut Loose\" provides a poignant look at how the long-term unemployed struggle in today's unfair economy to support their families, rebuild their lives, and cope with shame and self-blame. Yet it is also a call to action--a blueprint for a new kind of politics, one that offers a measure of grace in a society of ruthless advancement.\"--Provided by publisher.

In All I Want Is a Job!, Mary Gatta puts a human face on workforce development policy. An ethnographic sociologist, Gatta went undercover, posing as a client in a New Jersey One-Stop Career Center. One-Stop Centers, developed as part of the federal Workforce Investment Act, are supposed to be an unemployed worker's go-to resource on the way to re-employment. But, how well do these centers function? With swarms of new clients coming through their doors, are they fit for the task of pairing America's workforce with new jobs? Weaving together her own account with interviews of jobless women and caseworkers, Gatta offers a revealing glimpse of the toll that unemployment takes and the realities of social policy. Women—both educated and unskilled—are particularly vulnerable in the current economy. Since they are routinely paid less than their male counterparts, economic security is even harder for them to grasp. And, women are more easily tracked into available, low-wage work in sectors such as retail or food service. Originally designed to pair job-ready workers with available openings, the current system is ill fitted for diverse clients who are seeking gainful employment. Even if One-Stops were better suited to the needs of these workers, good jobs are scarce in the wake of the Great Recession. In spite of these pitfalls, Gatta saw hope and a sense of empowerment in clients who got intensive career counseling, new jobs, and social support. Drawing together tales from the frontlines, she highlights the promise and weaknesses of One-Stop Career Centers, recommending key shifts in workforce policy. America deserves a system that is less discriminatory, more human, and better able to assist women and their families in particular. The employed and unemployed alike would be better served by such a system—one that would meaningfully contribute to our economic recovery and future prosperity.

Background Long-term unemployment is associated with various health risks and low health literacy. Occupational rehabilitation organizations that employ individuals with a history of long-term unemployment may be ideal settings for promoting health literacy. The purpose of this study was to develop and test an intervention to enhance health literacy in this setting. Methods The intervention was developed using the steps of the Intervention Mapping protocol. It focused on nutrition, physical activity, and mental health literacy, and included both problem-based learning and practical activities. The intervention was tested using a single-arm pre-post design. Health literacy was assessed at the individual level using the European Health Literacy Scale (HLS-EU-Q16) for general health literacy, the Newest Vital Sign test for functional health literacy, and domain-specific literacies for food, physical activity and mental health literacy. Additionally, structured interviews were conducted with social workers and management staff in the participating organizations to evaluate organizational readiness for change, covering domains such as knowledge of existing efforts, leadership support, implementation climate, health literacy of participants, and available resources. Changes in individual outcome parameters over time were analyzed using paired t-tests. Regression models were used to assess the association between participation in the intervention activities and changes in outcomes. Results A total of nine organizations participated in the study. The organizational readiness assessment revealed an increase in management support, though a slight decline in the implementation climate was noted. A total of 171 participants (65% men; mean age = 51.9 years, SD = 9.9) were included in the baseline assessment, and 110 were included in the six-month follow-up. Approximately 50% of participants took part in the intervention activities. Positive trends over time were observed for food literacy and mental health literacy, but not for other outcomes. No clear pattern emerged in the relationship between participation in the intervention activities and changes in the outcome variables. Conclusion This study revealed small improvements in proximal outcome variables indicating feasibility and potential impact. However, more research is necessary to determine the effectiveness of this novel problem-based learning intervention.

What Work Means goes beyond the stereotypes and captures the diverse ways Americans view work as a part of a good life. Dispelling the notion of Americans as mere workaholics, Claudia Strauss presents a more nuanced perspective. While some live to work, others prefer a diligent 9-to-5 work ethic that is conscientious but preserves time for other interests. Her participants often enjoyed their jobs without making work the focus of their life. These findings challenge laborist views of waged work as central to a good life as well as post-work theories that treat work solely as exploitative and soul-crushing. Drawing upon the evocative stories of unemployed Americans from a wide range of occupations, from day laborers to corporate managers, both immigrant and native-born, Strauss explores how diverse Americans think about the place of work in a good life, gendered meanings of breadwinning, accepting financial support from family, friends, and the state, and what the ever-elusive American dream means to them. By considering how post-Fordist unemployment experiences diverge from joblessness earlier, What Work Means paves the way for a historically and culturally informed discussion of work meanings in a future of teleworking, greater automation, and increasing nonstandard employment.

Background Compared with single chronic diseases, multi-chronic conditions (MCCs) significantly impair patients’ daily functioning and impose economic burdens. Although China has implemented several medical reforms to standardize treatment processes and promote effective utilization of health services, patients with MCCs continue to prefer advanced medical institutions. This phenomenon is particularly prevalent among unemployed patients with MCCs. This study aims to identify the factors influencing inpatient service preferences among unemployed patients with MCCs and assess the extent to which these factors affect their decision-making. Methods This study conducted a discrete choice experiment (DCE) in Fuqing, Fujian Province, conducted from November 2021 to January 2022. The DCE incorporated five attributes: institutional rank, waiting times for hospital admission, travel time, acquaintances working in the hospital and average out-of-pocket expenses (OOPEs) per visit. To analyze the diverse preferences of unemployed individuals, the mixed logit model, relative importance analysis, and willingness-to-pay analysis were applied. Results A total of 383 unemployed patients with MCCs were identified for the study and multi-dimensional subgroup analyses were conducted. The results indicated that the overall sample group placed the greatest importance on a travel time of less than 1 h (β = 0.7487, p  < 0.001), followed by preference for tertiary hospitals (β = 0.2630, p  = 0.002), availability of beds on the day (β = 0.2074, p  = 0.050), and lower average OOPEs per visit (β = -0.0005, p  < 0.001). Subgroup analyses revealed significant differences in choice preferences based on demographic characteristics, including gender, age, and education level. Conclusions The inpatient service preferences of unemployed patients with MCCs are influenced by multiple factors. By examining the inpatient service choice behavior of unemployed patients with MCCs, this study provides a scientific foundation for targeted intervention strategies and supports the development of rational medical treatment behaviors. Specifically, enhancing the accessibility and service capacity of county-level hospitals may reduce travel time and average OOPEs per visit, thereby guiding patients to make rational inpatient service choices.

Drawing on the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, I track the subjective well-being of individuals as they enter and exit unemployment. Job loss is a salient trigger event that sets off large changes in well-being. The factors expected to improve the lot of the unemployed have limited efficacy: (1) changes in family income are not significantly correlated with well-being; (2) unemployment insurance eligibility seems to partly mitigate the effect of job loss, but is a poor substitute for work; and (3) even reemployment recovers only about two thirds of the initial harm of job loss, indicating a potential long-term scar effect of unemployment. This highlights the deep and intractable hardship caused by unemployment in America.

Prior research suggests that social connections, including acquaintances, friends, and family, are valuable in a job search process. In these studies, the size of an average job seeker’s network was much smaller and limited by the available modes of communication and the costs associated with maintaining social connections. However, the recent growth of online social networks has enabled job seekers to stay connected with many connections, weak or strong. Thus, the number of online connections—especially weak—has increased significantly. In this paper, we first examine whether an individual’s social network plays a role in driving job search behavior, taking into account online social networking sites (e.g., LinkedIn) and other job search modes. Second, we examine how ties in online social networks (both weak and strong) affect job search outcomes (modeled sequentially as job leads, interviews, and offers), and we compare the findings to job outcomes from traditional job search modes (e.g., career fairs, newspaper, Internet postings, and friends and family). To do so, we first construct an economic model of search behavior incorporating cost and benefit functions; we then estimate the model to recover structural parameters using the survey data of 424 users. Our findings show that users are spending more time searching for jobs on social networking sites. In addition, users’ strong ties play a significant role in job search and are especially helpful in generating job leads, interviews, and offers; the weak ties, on average, are ineffective in generating positive outcomes and marginally negative in some cases. This paper was accepted by Lorin Hitt, information systems.

Background: Unemployment is associated with a high prevalence of risky health behaviors. Mortality increases with the number of co-occurring risky behaviors but whether these behaviors co-occur with a greater than expected frequency (clustering) among unemployed people is not known.Methods: Differences according to unemployment status in co-occurrence and clustering of smoking, alcohol abuse, low leisure-time physical activity and unhealthy diet (marked by low fruit and vegetable intake) were assessed in 65,630 salaried workers, aged 18 to 65, who were participants in Constances, a French population-based cohort. Among them, 4573 (7.0%) were unemployed without (n = 3160, 4.8%) or with (n = 1413, 2.1%) past experience of unemployment.Results: Compared to the employed, unemployed participants without or with past experience of unemployment were similarly overexposed to each risky behavior (sex and age adjusted odds-ratios ranging from 1.38 to 2.19) except for low physical activity, resulting in higher rates of co-occurrence of two, three and four behaviors (relative risk ratios, RRR 1.20 to 3.74). Association between behavior co-occurrence and unemployment did not vary across gender, partnership status or income category. Risky behavior clustering, i.e., higher than expected co-occurrence rates based on the prevalence of each behavior, was similar across unemployment status. The same observations can be made in employed participants with past experience of unemployment, although overexposure to risky behaviors (ORs 1.15 to 1.38) and increased rates of co-occurrence (ORs 1.19 to 1.58) were not as pronounced as in the unemployed.Conclusions: Co-occurrence of risky behaviors in currently and/or formerly unemployed workers is not worsened by behavior clustering. Engagement in each of these behaviors should be considered an engagement in distinct social practices, with consequences for preventive policies.

Background Unemployed people have higher morbidity compared to employed people. Both the frequent use and the underutilization of healthcare services are common among unemployed people, potentially leading to unmet healthcare needs. We studied the differences in self-reported no need and unmet need for healthcare services between unemployed and employed persons and the health-related factors associated with these differences. Methods We used the Healthy Finland Survey of 2022–2023, which included employed and unemployed respondents of working age (20–64, N  = 9841). The outcomes were (1) no need for healthcare services and (2) unmet need for healthcare services in the previous 12 months. We used logistic regression, adjusting for sociodemographic and health-related factors, including limiting long-term illness, psychological distress, limited functional ability, very weak social inclusion, poor work ability, smoking, and excessive alcohol consumption. Results Among unemployed people, 23% reported no need for a doctor or nurse, whereas 41% reported unmet needs. Compared with employed people, unemployed people were more likely to perceive no need for doctor or nurse services (OR 1.36, 95% CI 1.02–1.82). When health-related factors, especially long-term illness and work ability, were controlled for, the difference increased. In the full model, the OR was 1.87 (95% CI 1.35–2.58). Unemployed people were more likely than employed people to have unmet need for doctor or nurse (OR 2.31, 95% CI 1.78–3.00). For most of the health-related factors, especially work ability, controlling decreased the difference, whereas controlling for smoking and alcohol had little effect. In the full model the OR was 1.33 (95% CI 0.98–1.81). Conclusions Unmet healthcare need among unemployed people was largely attributable to health-related factors, especially poor work ability. In some cases, unemployed people may not recognize their need for healthcare, highlighting the importance of low-threshold services and proactive outreach to ensure equitable access. Healthcare systems should ensure effective and timely use of services to prevent diagnostic delays or untreated illnesses and support more appropriate use of sickness benefits and rehabilitation services.

This paper develops a matching model of the labor market under wage rigidity when hiring decisions are irreversible. There are two types of workers, the skilled and the unskilled. The model is used to analyze whether technological advances may have increased unemployment. It is shown that it is likely to be so if they are associated with an increase in the productivity and/or the supply of skilled workers relative to unskilled workers. These effects are stronger when hiring decisions are more irreversible.