Job Search Strategies and Unemployment Duration

Abstract

About 90 % of the reemployed and unemployed workers in our study indicated they had searched for a job. While finding a job after displacement is challenging for all workers, some manage to return quickly to the active labor force whereas others remain unemployed for over a year or even arrive at the end of eligibility for unemployment benefits. These differences may translate into diverging career outcomes and quality of life. In particular, since in modern societies individuals’ social status strongly depends on their participation in the economic production system, unemployment, especially if it is extended, may trigger a feeling of failure and a downgrading of workers’ social status (Gallie and Paugam 2000: 1).