Unemployed Americans struggle to find next job

The sluggish job market, with little\u00a0hiring or firing, makes it harder for unemployed workers to find their next job.

This article was produced by Capital & Main. It is published with permission.

Getting laid off can lead to months of uncertainty. But what happens when those months turn into years? When Jacob Sandy left his job as a software engineer in December 2023, he never imagined that he’d still be without work more than two years later. 

At the time, the tech industry was undergoing massive job cuts, a response to overzealous hiring during the pandemic. Sandy’s employer, a cloud computing platform that helps automate business workflows, did not engage in sweeping layoffs. But he said he began to suspect his employer wanted its staff to quit voluntarily. 

“It just felt like they were making it miserable and hoping we’d leave,” said Sandy, who lives in San Diego with his school age son. “And for whatever reason, I decided that was the better option.”

Sandy said that his first year of unemployment was largely his own choice and that being without a job was initially good for his mental health, until it wasn’t.