Unemployment is a state, not a trait
What "unemployed" means is evolving.
Being labeled “unemployed” can feel like you’re branded for life. As if the label says something about your character. The reality is unemployment is not a trait but a state - a moment of time in your career. Experiencing unemployment is more common than you think. It’s just that no one wanted to talk about it. But that’s changing. And with it what the label “unemployed” means.
When I first started talking about the “unemployment experience” in 2019, I’d get funny looks. On the rare occasion someone understood what I was talking about, I’d get a knowing nod. In 2022, I wrote about the layoffs at X, Twitter: Focusing on the 75%, which received some traction. In 2025, when history repeated itself, I saw a shift. We learned that no sector is safe. The government layoffs impact us all. No matter how you feel about this administration, we will all experience first-hand the ripple effects of these layoffs.
Unemployment has become universalized. Even if you haven’t experienced it, you know someone or you’ve seen someone in the media who has. Today people are more compassionate.
Here are a few ways I’ve seen the perception shift around the label “unemployed.”
1. Layoffs happen
We collectively experienced the pandemic. Overnight the market shut off, forcing businesses to layoff people. The pandemic taught us we are not always in control of our market. But the pandemic wasn’t our first experience. In the past 25 years we’ve seen three recessions: the Dot-com Bubble, Great Recession, and THEN Covid-19. The pandemic reinforced what we’ve seen time and time again. The difference this time was we couldn’t quickly “just fix it,” Covid-19 was beyond our human control.
💡 Take away? You can be unemployed for a variety of reason, many out of your control.
2. Quitting time
The pandemic also taught us life is unpredictable. Prioritize what matters. Cue the Big Quit (aka the Great Resignation). In 2021, 47 million workers quit their jobs. The top three reasons people quit? According to the Pew Research Center low pay, no opportunities to advance, and feeling disrespected at work. Burnout only added fuel to the Big Quit.
This doesn’t mean everyone took time off. According to the Word Economic Forum instead of leaving work all together, many people left to find something more fulfilling or suited to their lifestyle. Even if people didn’t outright quit, they shifted priorities. “Quiet quitting” entered our lexicon.
💡 Take away? Unemployment can be a choice. You’re taking time off to prioritize you.
3. Longer searches
The adage goes save six months of your salary as an emergency fund. But what happens when the market freezes? Finding a job take a lot longer than six months. Millennials and Gen Z intimately understand this. Millennials entered the workforce around the Great Recession and Gen Z around Covid-19. Experiencing this early in our careers made us aware that jobs are limited. Something we were more likely to learn later in our career as we move into managerial positions.
💡 Take away? Finding a job takes more or less time, depending on the state of the economy.
4. Public weighs in
In 2022, I wrote layoffs have become more public. The trend continues.
Instead of layoffs taking place behind closed doors, the public is invited to be a judge. Media coverage is rampant and we’re welcome to everything from emails to lawsuits. Employees get involved in the discussion. From LinkedIn solidarity post to petitions, employees are speaking up. When Google announced its plan to layoff 12,000 people, employees petitioned. And if you think level matters, think again. When OpenAI’s CEO was let go, +730 employees petitioned the board to have him reinstated. Layoffs unfolding in front of us make the public question their legitimacy.
💡 Take away? Unemployment can have nothing to do with job performance.
Before you decide being unemployed says something about you, rethink what “unemployed” means today. Public sentiment is evolving. Millennials and Gen Z, who’ve experienced wide sweeping unemployment, are changing the conversation. Unemployment is not a trait but a state that many people experience in their career. By talking about unemployment we can lift the assumptions (and stigmas) around it and better build the support people need.
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