Packing for a Long Employment Hiatus (A Thought Experiment)

The U.S. labor market is changing, with capital moving (and being moved) to the business arena (and from other sectors, many public ones). The job shifts can feel dizzying for those caught up in them. For some, the unemployment can go past the six-month mark, into so-called long-term unemployment (or more forbiddingly, the permanently unemployed category), even while they are actively seeking work.

While the hope is to work as continuously as possible, people may have to work FT or PT in short stints. While the hope is that the labor market recovers and new work positions are created, the future is looking somewhat amorphous at present. The narrative goes that artificial intelligence is consuming people’s jobs.

Many with relevant expertise in terms of knowledge, skills, and abilities / attitudes (KSAs) have found themselves out in the cold. This slideshow explores the experience of packing for a long employment hiatus…by getting into the right mindsets, by keeping knowledge and skills fresh, by living full lives (in the meantime), and by keeping the faith (based on economic history and priors).

1. Packing for a Long
Employment Hiatus
A Thought Experiment

2. Overview
•The U.S. labor market is changing,
with capital moving (and being moved)
to the business arena (and from other
sectors, many public ones). The job
shifts can feel dizzying for those
caught up in them. For some, the
unemployment can go past the six-
month mark, into so-called long-term
unemployment (or more forbiddingly,
the permanently unemployed
category), even while they are actively
seeking work.

3. Overview (cont.)
•While the hope is to work as
continuously as possible, people
may have to work FT or PT in short
stints. While the hope is that the
labor market recovers and new
work positions are created, the
future is looking somewhat
amorphous at present. The
narrative goes that artificial
intelligence is consuming
people’s jobs.

4. Overview(cont.)
•Many with relevant expertise in terms
of knowledge, skills, and abilities /
attitudes (KSAs) have found
themselves out in the cold. This
slideshow explores the experience of
packing for a long employment
hiatus…by getting into the right
mindsets, by keeping knowledge and
skills fresh, by living full lives (in the
meantime), and by keeping the faith
(based on economic history and
priors).

5. Flashing Red

6. Indicators of a
Wobbly Job Market
•Change comes about based on policies.
They come about based on market
behaviors. They come about based on
technological changes.
•If there is less liquidity in the world (and
in particular sectors), there will be fewer
job opportunities.
•Some indicators of a wobbly job market:
slower hiring, job cuts, layoffs and
firings, higher unemployment, fewer job
enouncements, and others.

7. Difficult Vibes
•There has been a mass-scale paradigm shift in higher education.
•Where states had backed off funding higher education fairly
severely, now it was the feds doing the same thing.
•While boom and bust cycles have been a constant, the lengths of
the cycles vary. Recoveries take time.
•Economies go through various phases.
•Nothing lasts forever in the exact same way. And perhaps one
wouldn’t want the world to. Adaptivity is a strength in the system.

8. Difficult Vibes (cont.)
•Predictions are bandied about: stagnation, stagflation, recession?
None of the above? These are at the macro levels.
•Where will new jobs come from, in an age of AI, robotics, self-driving
passenger vehicles and trucks, tractors and harvesters, boats, and
other fast-advancing technologies? What profit-seeking endeavors will
these be? (The profit-seeking is a necessity for business survival.)
•What knowledge, skills, and abilities / attitudes (KSAs) will be required
for the new work?
In uncertainty, organizations freeze. They stop hiring, and then, they
start laying off staff. They dual-hat existing staff. They try to right-size
for the world they are in. Job 1 is for the organization to survive and
even thrive.

9. Difficult Vibes (cont.)
•When there is a major pivot going on,
people need the mental space to
make a new life, even if it is wholly
unfamiliar from the prior life.
•The current period has something
echoic of the pandemic times albeit
with a government that has pulled
back from providing supports (given
the massive and growing federal
deficit).

10. Difficult Vibes
(cont.)
•Depending on the ages of the
job seekers, they may
themselves date out of the
competition. (Retirement age
is supposed to be 67.)
•For job hunters, this requires a
stalking patience.

11. Planning for a Long Journey

12. Planning for a Long Journey
•Long journeys require emotional equilibrium. They require
forbearance for whatever may come.
•Long journeys require resourcing, to survive in times of austerity
and headwinds.
•Long journeys require some accommodation for the destination,
which will likely not be where an individual may expect.
•Long journeys mean dealing with various types of transport and
uncertain weather.
•Long journeys mean some companionship and on-the-road
friendships along the way.

13. Planning for a Long
Journey (cont.)
•Long journeys require a sense of
adventure and change. There are
many surprises around ever turn and
each new horizon. There will be a lot
of weather and a lot to weather.

14. Being Okay with the
Unknown

15. At the Micro-and Meso-Levels
•Oftentimes, people live in their own realities, just trundling along,
even as the headlines became incessant and more dire.
•What happens in the larger ecosystem has effects on the micro-
and meso-levels. They affect individuals, families, and
organizations.
•The happenings in the macro environment have put all on notice.
•Individual-level changes can be sudden and challenging.

16. Some Public Resources in the World
•Individuals need to be able to find out what resources are in the
world. These may include supports for housing, food, job-hunting,
lower-cost medical care, and the like.
•There is a gap between human needs and government
provisioning.
•For many supports, there are time limits. Resourcing runs out.

17. Support from
Family and Friends
•Family and friends may / may not
provide support beyond emotional
support. They may be in straitened
circumstances, too.
•Notice neighbors’ cars in their
driveway during regular work hours?
Many are under pressure.
•Charitable organizations elicit
donations and funding constantly,
but they are also only able to cover
some needs. And their financing is
also often under pressure.

18. Realizing it is a Long Journey
•Some may make the transition from one job to another without too
much trouble. The majority will not (at least not with the current
numbers in terms of hiring).
•For many, it is not until one is in it for a time that they realize it is a
long-term deal. To make it, people need to be both optimistic and
realistic simultaneously. They need to be strategic. They need to
engage with job-hunting at pace. They need to control for their
costs and slow consumption (especially unnecessary
consumption).

19. Testing the Waters

20. Interviewing for Jobs
•It helps to spiff up resumes and CVs and other work documents. It
helps to elicit letters of recommendation. It helps to acquire
professional references.
•Job applications become fairly easy to put out once one gets into a
groove with it.
•Use interviews to get a feel of the larger employment ecosystem.
•Many employers request multi-phased interviews. They request work
samples “as-if” one were in the position.
•There may be offers of part-time work without any medical or dental
and only a limited benefits package. There may be offers of
employment positions with falling wages.

21. Interviewing for Jobs (cont.)
•Some employers are announcing jobs with uncertain (grant-
based) financing. Some retract work offers because of a lack of
funding.
•Many companies are slow-walking hires.
•Job applicants should not blame-shift to the employers. They are
doing their best, too. They are also under pressure. They have to
make the best decisions for themselves. Keep perspective.
Maintain understanding and empathy.

22. Side Gigs
•Some go to side gigs to survive, such
as delivering food.
•Some side gigs markets are saturated,
though.

23. Consider the Creative Economy
•For stress mitigation, it may help to engage the larger creative
economy.
•Learn new technologies, too, such as generative AI, to be ready for
what comes next.

24. Reskilling
•Going back to school for KSAs that can lead to a place in the
workforce…makes sense.
•This will require some deeper research, to know what could work
and what would align with one’s skills and preferences.
•There may be some path dependencies that have led to the
present moment. View the past practically and not as a
daydreamer’s “what-if.”

25. Funding the Fundamentals

26. A Living Budget
•It helps to have a working budget.
•Stabilize what is able to be stabilized in
terms of expenditures. That might be
housing, utilities, food.
•There is nothing to say that things won’t
get worse (until they get better).

27. A Change of Attitude
•It helps to see work as a privilege, paying bills as a privilege, and
making a life in an economy as a privilege. It helps to appreciate
being the “rat race.”
•It is important to know what one brings to the table in terms of a
workplace and to get and stay employable.

28. Helps if You Can
Afford Hard Times
•For protracted periods of
unemployment, it helps if one can
afford it. This means a personal
emergency budget. Perhaps there is
passive income coming it.
•There is a difference between
constructive use of time and non-
constructive. Do more of the first and
less of the latter.
•Volunteer work fits into the
constructive category.

29. Enjoying Life
•Life does not stop in hard times.
•There are still some fun to be had.
•Everything is in flux, and times will
change again. Bet on it.
•Know what the individual can
control, and work on that…
Understand what can lead to
changes at the macro level, and
advocate for that.

30. SoAbout the Packing…
…for a Long Employment Hiatus

31. Attitudes
Maintain a realistic hope. (Hope is much
more realistic anyway than non-hope.)

32. Partially Completed Projects
•It helps to have partially completed projects—around the house,
around the studio—to fill time constructively.
•Keep tools up-to-date and ready.
•Stay active.

33. Supporting Each
Other
•Reach out to others.
•Stay social.
•Help each other out.
•Avoid the scammers.

34. What not to Pack?
•Just do not pack it in.

35. Conclusion and Contact

36. Conclusion and
Contact
•Dr. Shalin Hai-Jew
•[email protected]
•The decorative visuals are created in
the Deep Dream Generator using
original seeding analog images and
text prompts.