During the Great Recession my industry was hit particularly hard (environmental engineering, pollution remediation). I remained on unemployment for the full 2 y

During the Great Recession my industry was hit particularly hard (environmental engineering, pollution remediation). I remained on unemployment for the full 2 years while pursuing about 5 real job opportunities per year. 80% of the time employers told me they were very impressed, but decided not to hire, or promote internally, because they didn't want to be on the hook for unemployment if work dried up again. This is an anecdote, but if unemployment didn't exist I would have had a decent paying job within 4 months of being laid off. IMO this is preferable to being trapped in an unemployment system with terrible incentives. I ultimately changed industries after realizing that cleaning up pollution is the last thing people will pay for during economic downturns.