How To Beat The Unemployment Blues

We live in volatile times, and uncertainty extends to all aspects of our lives. What steps do you need to follow to ensure that you are prepared for career upheaval?

- Amanda Visser

Most people strive to be happy or to experience a feeling of well-being. Normally that level of happiness drops because of some traumatic experience such as divorce, sickness, death of a family member or unemployment.

According to Kerstin Jatho, one of eight qualified positive psychology life coaches in South Africa, people’s happiness levels recover and return to normal after they’ve gone through such events, the exception being unemployment.

“You very seldom manage to get back to your original level of well-being after being unemployed, especially if it has been for a long period,” she says.

According to Statistics South Africa’s latest Quarterly Employment Survey, the expanded unemployment rate during the first quarter of this year was 36.4%. This means officially 6.2m people are unemployed.

Jatho says unemployment has nothing to do with a person’s self-worth. However, the person loses trust in society and may never regain that trust.

Louis Meijer, executive and business coach at Change Partners, describes himself as an engineer by training, a project manager by profession, and an executive coach by design and passion.

He is no stranger to unemployment – a few years ago, the company where he was managing director was restructured down and its entire staff contingent was retrenched.

When you have been in a position of leadership in a company where people looked to you for decision making and support, you feel without direction when suddenly all that is gone. “It becomes lonely. All the support, of having to go to work and being around people is gone,” says Meijer.