6 ms·

Unemployment Beats Having A Lousy Job

76 points by jkuria 15y ago

tryitnow 15y ago
Just to clarify this research study is defining "lousy job" as one with "low job control, high job demands and complexity, job insecurity, and the perception of unfair pay." Some other things to note: This is based on data from "a nationally representative sample survey" conducted in Australia. It had a response rate of 66%. I quickly reviewed the article and just wanted to share some of the basic facts behind the study. I was particularly curious about how they defined "lousy job."
- eric-hu 15y ago
  A couple more interesting snippets: > Unemployed people who had obtained optimal jobs between the surveys showed better improvement in mental health when compared to those who remained unemployed. However, moving from unemployment to poor quality employment showed greater negative effects than staying unemployed. That sounds consistent with my experience. >Not all aspects of psychosocial job quality, like social support at work, were assessed in this study. A few of the results could have been biased, so the study cannot be generalized. Ha. Edit: I pulled those quotes from the link "recent study" in the first paragraph: http://www.fyiliving.com/research/unemployment-and-job-satisfaction-impact-mental-health/ http://www.fyiliving.com/research/unemployment-and-job-satis... This looks like a synopsis of the study results. Not to be confused with the PDF of the actual study, at the bottom of the synopsis.
Maven911 15y ago
suře, until the bills come in...
FiddlerClamp 15y ago
I really disagree -- with unemployment any sense of additional worth you get from being able to hold down a job evaporates. Not to mention that having to keep to a schedule for a job is much healthier than the wacky hours you can end up with when you're unemployed and wake/sleep according to your natural schedule.
- Jach 15y ago
  Not to mention your sense of self-image if you get turned down for positions again and again. I disagree with you though on waking and sleeping on your natural schedule--it seems like that should be the healthier option. Though I think the issue here is one of immediate happiness vs. reflective happiness. If you have a bad job, at least 8 hours of your day are spent not liking your current situation. (But at least you have a job, can feed the family, etc.) If you're unemployed, your day-to-day life may be less stressful without those 8 hours of teeth-grinding and you get to hang out with your cat a lot more. (But you can't get a job, your kids are going hungry, whatever.) Going from depressed unemployment to a crappy job is worse though, I think because it makes you miserable day-to-day and reflectively too for a while, since you still haven't gotten over your unemployment depression. Happiness is strongly correlated with income up until $60k or so, then it levels off. If the crappy job is also low-income that just makes things worse.
  - tonyedgecombe 15y ago
    I do wonder about that figure, is that for people in the US because it is just above the mean US salary. In some parts of the world you would be very comfortable on that salary, in other parts you will struggle to find accommodation.
    - Jach 15y ago
      Yeah, it's from US data. In some places even $200/mo lets you live like a member of the upper class... I originally remember hearing the figure from a TED talk ( here it is, highly recommended http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_experience_vs_memory.html http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_exper... ), and since then there have been a few other sources I can't remember right now.
- sixtofour 15y ago
  I agree with your point about sense of worth evaporating. But despite the title, the article said that while one is depressed if unemployed, one is more depressed than that with a lousy job. The article does not paint as rosy a picture of unemployment as the headline.
Kopion 15y ago
hmmm... could this new found onset of depression be from today's self-entitlement culture. We work for something beyond ourselves...
Shenglong 15y ago
Makes sense. When you don't have a job, it's because you haven't lowered yourself to taking bad jobs, and because those idiots haven't discovered you yet. You still have your pride. When you take a lousy job, you're admitting defeat, and diving into failure head first. You weren't discovered because you have nothing to offer, and now you don't even have your pride. ^ read in a satirical tone
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
latch 15y ago
I'm betting on this being true, my last day is September 2nd. I'm lucky that I have enough money saved up to last 3-5 years, but still...I don't feel like like I'm only partially exaggerating to say that my job is killing me.
MrKurtHaeusler 15y ago
Especially in Germany. Now I disagree with excessive socialism, and sure, refusing unemployment benefit would be one way of making a statement against it, but I think living it up on the generous unemployment benefit, and lording it in front of hard-working, voting taxpayers is also a useful method of encouraging positive social change.
Luyt 15y ago
What a superficial article. Is it only meant to attract page views? Stuff like: "there have been links to extended Internet use and a rise in depression" How about some references? "It is said..." "everybody knows..." "literature exists about..." Sure!
- bennysaurus 15y ago
  There is a link down the bottom to the abstract which links to the full thing: http://press.psprings.co.uk/oem/march/oem59030.pdf http://press.psprings.co.uk/oem/march/oem59030.pdf Edit: Agreed though, the article itself is a waste.
- forgotAgain 15y ago
  Took a look at a few other articles on the site. They're all of the same quality. Great example of a mill throwing out lots of useless articles geared for SEO.
joshuabutner 15y ago
Take the title of this article as a warning for the lack of worthwhile content contained within.
yason 15y ago
If I got laid off, I wouldn't rush to get another job. Where I live the unemployment benefits for recently laid off are decent which means I would just take a couple of years off with less money and instead spend the working hours in coding whatever I want and contributing to open source projects! That's work, too, albeit the current society doesn't really count such volunteering as "work". But it still is: you only need some other means to live off while doing that.
krobertson 15y ago
Some of the comments on the article are really sad. People justifying the "I can't find a high paying job, so I'll just mooch off society" mentality.
wisty 15y ago
An old farmer on his deathbed called for his two sons+. He told them that while his farm did not produce much, there was a valuable treasure buried in it which they would discover as they plowed the fields. He then left them each half his farm, and his blessing. When the old man had passed on, the two sons began working in the fields. They worked hard, from morning to night, but never found a brass farthing. Then, when the harvest came, it was bountiful. Their old father had told them the truth - the treasure buried in the land was its fertility, and their hard work had uncovered it! But everyone wants to believe a get-rich-quick scheme, and the two sons were no exception. They worked twice as hard as before, still hoping to find the treasure. When they found nothing, they began borrowing money to buy the land from each other. They started importing expensive tools to help them dig faster. Eventually, the clamor of creditors made them face the hard truth - they had been wasting their time. And so they fell into a great depression. + I'm tempted to say it was three, and give the youngest a cat, a pair of boots, and a sack; but that's really another story.
- Maro 15y ago
  I think you should've ended it at "...and their hard work had uncovered it!"
  - chromic 15y ago
    His version is a bit more realistic analogy of what people do.
- iqster 15y ago
  I thought you were going to end it with something else ... the two sons got massive reverse mortgages on their land. Commodity prices collapsed after the bountiful harvest and the bank ended up foreclosing.
  - wisty 15y ago
    Either way, it works. The point is, real productivity can increase in a bubble. And it slumps when the bubble ends, because this productivity was caused by people working harder for phantom rewards. When those non-existent carrots disappear, people tend to lose motivation.
sidman 15y ago
if anyone knows this i guess its me. I put my resignation in one month ago and have been unemployed for about 2 days so far and I am loving it. My old job was in a large bank, paid well and i only had to work 4 days a week. The only issue is i wasn't following my passion and it made me feel well and truly down EVERY SINGLE DAY (was there for about 2 years). For about 3 months prior to putting in my resignation i was also already working on a side project that started getting legs and had started to bring in ramen profitable google ads profit so that It allowed me to quit work and still be able to eat whilst not touching to much of savings along with also paying for some small amazon servers to keep the service running. I thought what the hey, lets give it a go so i quit. Shocked everyone, including parents but i just couldn't go on any longer. It hurt to much... and IT in banks just totally suck. Also like the article says planned an exercise regime, my work hours for my currently little side project and hanging to start on Peter Norvig and Andrew Ng's classes when they start. Never felt this excited in a while. I think the caveat though is that while being unemployed (currently like I am) is better then having a lousy job , not being able to put food on the table is lousier then a lousy job. I guess this article applies to people who aren't financially struggling cause i know some people who would take ANY job that came their way right now.
- pagekalisedown 15y ago
  How are you going to deal with employers that will only hire people that are already employed if / when you have to look for a job?
  - alexro 15y ago
    Just pass on them - these 'employers' are not worth working for anyway.
  - sidman 15y ago
    Hopefully thats not an issue, i plan to train myself more during this period of down time. Just cause im not going to the office doesn't mean im going to loose my skills. If anything im going to be learning a lot more things then i did at work. If they care whether i am currently employed or not if i do need to join the work force again then i guess screw'em, they aren't looking for the right kinds of things.
codelion 15y ago
Ahem, How the hell are you supposed to feed yourself ? Not everyone has enough savings, some have family responsibilities as well.
- retube 15y ago
  Yeah, agreed. It's all very well pontificating about the unjustness of having a crappy job, being "under-paid", not doing anything "worthwhile" or apparently bettering mankind. But I know from personal experience that having any job, any job at all, and earning a crust is a damn sight better than earning nothing at all.
  - pavel_lishin 15y ago
    Depression beats starvation any day of the week.
- JoeAltmaier 15y ago
  I get the point, but nobody has to go hungry in America. There's food for you if you just ask. My old Minister used to say "A person can have all the morals they can afford". Applies to out-of-work folks, and to America as well - we need not let anyone go hungry.
  - rexreed 15y ago
    Spoken like someone who doesn't have a family to feed, clothe, and/or shelter.
    - JoeAltmaier 15y ago
      Huh? 51 years old, putting 3 through college. Been out of work for 6 months at a time. Currently dissolved my consulting business to go back to work for "the man" (though truthfully am vesting equity, not all bad). I understand sheltering the family can be a burden, yes. But hungry? Never. Lets use some other euphemism for hardship. Your family, church, community, government will not let you go hungry if you have the wit to stand in line.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
mathattack 15y ago
IMHO - There is a ring of truth to this, but it does not seem so profound. When I was unemployed (2008) it was depressing because the market was awful. But... I was able to work full time at improving my health (no "I'm working too hard to go the gym" excuse!) and finding new work. The fear of poverty is depressing, but not as bad as working awful hours without the time to improve one's situation. It is very easy to say, "Better to go hungry and wait for the perfect job." I think it is more realistic to say, "Don't take the first job that comes along. Be sure whatever you do is at least moving you in the right direction."
VladRussian 15y ago
in Bay Area not much unemployment per.se. to provide enough material to talk about. Wrt. the lousy jobs - some of the youngsters what bust their chops at the local Starbucks also carry a full time load at 4 year colleges (though not Stanford/Berkeley) - somehow i can't imagine them whining "unemployment or a lousy job"
- eazolan 15y ago
  That's because the Starbucks job is just to get by until they graduate. Then they expect all their hard work to be rewarded and get a normal job. They will "whine" when they can't find anything.
uladzislau 15y ago
Any part time job even a lousy one is better than to be unemployed. It increases your self-esteem and motivates you. I just wouldn't go for full time because you won't have time to improve your situation, find a better job, networking etc.
ChristopherM 15y ago
I quit my job in the middle of June, I have to agree being "unemployed" definitely beats having a lousy job. In fact I haven't been this happy since the last time I was unemployed. I learned so much, worked on so many projects... The most amazing thing is that time slows down again, the weeks and months don't race by in a blur. I am currently learning Objective-C, openGL and how to develop iPhone applications. Sure I figured, why not write a game and see how it goes; writing the code will be the easy part. I look forward to learning about the apple release process, marketing, doing user studies, reviewing the feedback... I give myself til the end of 2012, if the game or game(s) are successful I will continue. Otherwise maybe I will consider moving from software engineering into product management. The thrill and challenge of writing code is gone, the isolation one feels developing code has become too much; while I can understand other developers I've learned that I am not really like them. I enjoy working with various team players, executives, customers. I like going to meetings where I am an active participant, I like being thrown into the deep end of the pool where I have to figure things out on the fly. I love making decisions and taking full responsibility for them. Unemployed? Yeah, it's the happiest time of my life. Stress completely vanished. Not even looking for a job, haven't even updated LinkedIn so very few people even know I'm not "working".
Hyena 15y ago
Comments to this post seem largely divided between people who identify heavily with their employment and people who identify heavily with their activity. For the former, unemployment is terrible. For the latter, it's merely a financial issue.

76 points by jkuria 15y ago

Just to clarify this research study is defining "lousy job" as one with "low job control, high job demands and complexity, job insecurity, and the perception of unfair pay." Some other things to note: This is based on data from "a nationally representative sample survey" conducted in Australia. It had a response rate of 66%. I quickly reviewed the article and just wanted to share some of the basic facts behind the study. I was particularly curious about how they defined "lousy job."

eric-hu 15y ago
A couple more interesting snippets: > Unemployed people who had obtained optimal jobs between the surveys showed better improvement in mental health when compared to those who remained unemployed. However, moving from unemployment to poor quality employment showed greater negative effects than staying unemployed. That sounds consistent with my experience. >Not all aspects of psychosocial job quality, like social support at work, were assessed in this study. A few of the results could have been biased, so the study cannot be generalized. Ha. Edit: I pulled those quotes from the link "recent study" in the first paragraph: http://www.fyiliving.com/research/unemployment-and-job-satisfaction-impact-mental-health/ http://www.fyiliving.com/research/unemployment-and-job-satis... This looks like a synopsis of the study results. Not to be confused with the PDF of the actual study, at the bottom of the synopsis.

Maven911 15y ago

suře, until the bills come in...

FiddlerClamp 15y ago

I really disagree -- with unemployment any sense of additional worth you get from being able to hold down a job evaporates. Not to mention that having to keep to a schedule for a job is much healthier than the wacky hours you can end up with when you're unemployed and wake/sleep according to your natural schedule.

Jach 15y ago
Not to mention your sense of self-image if you get turned down for positions again and again. I disagree with you though on waking and sleeping on your natural schedule--it seems like that should be the healthier option. Though I think the issue here is one of immediate happiness vs. reflective happiness. If you have a bad job, at least 8 hours of your day are spent not liking your current situation. (But at least you have a job, can feed the family, etc.) If you're unemployed, your day-to-day life may be less stressful without those 8 hours of teeth-grinding and you get to hang out with your cat a lot more. (But you can't get a job, your kids are going hungry, whatever.) Going from depressed unemployment to a crappy job is worse though, I think because it makes you miserable day-to-day and reflectively too for a while, since you still haven't gotten over your unemployment depression. Happiness is strongly correlated with income up until $60k or so, then it levels off. If the crappy job is also low-income that just makes things worse.
- tonyedgecombe 15y ago
  I do wonder about that figure, is that for people in the US because it is just above the mean US salary. In some parts of the world you would be very comfortable on that salary, in other parts you will struggle to find accommodation.
  - Jach 15y ago
    Yeah, it's from US data. In some places even $200/mo lets you live like a member of the upper class... I originally remember hearing the figure from a TED talk ( here it is, highly recommended http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_experience_vs_memory.html http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_exper... ), and since then there have been a few other sources I can't remember right now.
sixtofour 15y ago
I agree with your point about sense of worth evaporating. But despite the title, the article said that while one is depressed if unemployed, one is more depressed than that with a lousy job. The article does not paint as rosy a picture of unemployment as the headline.

Kopion 15y ago

hmmm... could this new found onset of depression be from today's self-entitlement culture. We work for something beyond ourselves...

Shenglong 15y ago

Makes sense. When you don't have a job, it's because you haven't lowered yourself to taking bad jobs, and because those idiots haven't discovered you yet. You still have your pride. When you take a lousy job, you're admitting defeat, and diving into failure head first. You weren't discovered because you have nothing to offer, and now you don't even have your pride. ^ read in a satirical tone

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

latch 15y ago

I'm betting on this being true, my last day is September 2nd. I'm lucky that I have enough money saved up to last 3-5 years, but still...I don't feel like like I'm only partially exaggerating to say that my job is killing me.

MrKurtHaeusler 15y ago

Especially in Germany. Now I disagree with excessive socialism, and sure, refusing unemployment benefit would be one way of making a statement against it, but I think living it up on the generous unemployment benefit, and lording it in front of hard-working, voting taxpayers is also a useful method of encouraging positive social change.

Luyt 15y ago

What a superficial article. Is it only meant to attract page views? Stuff like: "there have been links to extended Internet use and a rise in depression" How about some references? "It is said..." "everybody knows..." "literature exists about..." Sure!

bennysaurus 15y ago
There is a link down the bottom to the abstract which links to the full thing: http://press.psprings.co.uk/oem/march/oem59030.pdf http://press.psprings.co.uk/oem/march/oem59030.pdf Edit: Agreed though, the article itself is a waste.
forgotAgain 15y ago
Took a look at a few other articles on the site. They're all of the same quality. Great example of a mill throwing out lots of useless articles geared for SEO.

joshuabutner 15y ago

Take the title of this article as a warning for the lack of worthwhile content contained within.

yason 15y ago

If I got laid off, I wouldn't rush to get another job. Where I live the unemployment benefits for recently laid off are decent which means I would just take a couple of years off with less money and instead spend the working hours in coding whatever I want and contributing to open source projects! That's work, too, albeit the current society doesn't really count such volunteering as "work". But it still is: you only need some other means to live off while doing that.

krobertson 15y ago

Some of the comments on the article are really sad. People justifying the "I can't find a high paying job, so I'll just mooch off society" mentality.

wisty 15y ago

An old farmer on his deathbed called for his two sons+. He told them that while his farm did not produce much, there was a valuable treasure buried in it which they would discover as they plowed the fields. He then left them each half his farm, and his blessing. When the old man had passed on, the two sons began working in the fields. They worked hard, from morning to night, but never found a brass farthing. Then, when the harvest came, it was bountiful. Their old father had told them the truth - the treasure buried in the land was its fertility, and their hard work had uncovered it! But everyone wants to believe a get-rich-quick scheme, and the two sons were no exception. They worked twice as hard as before, still hoping to find the treasure. When they found nothing, they began borrowing money to buy the land from each other. They started importing expensive tools to help them dig faster. Eventually, the clamor of creditors made them face the hard truth - they had been wasting their time. And so they fell into a great depression. + I'm tempted to say it was three, and give the youngest a cat, a pair of boots, and a sack; but that's really another story.

Maro 15y ago
I think you should've ended it at "...and their hard work had uncovered it!"
- chromic 15y ago
  His version is a bit more realistic analogy of what people do.
iqster 15y ago
I thought you were going to end it with something else ... the two sons got massive reverse mortgages on their land. Commodity prices collapsed after the bountiful harvest and the bank ended up foreclosing.
- wisty 15y ago
  Either way, it works. The point is, real productivity can increase in a bubble. And it slumps when the bubble ends, because this productivity was caused by people working harder for phantom rewards. When those non-existent carrots disappear, people tend to lose motivation.

sidman 15y ago

if anyone knows this i guess its me. I put my resignation in one month ago and have been unemployed for about 2 days so far and I am loving it. My old job was in a large bank, paid well and i only had to work 4 days a week. The only issue is i wasn't following my passion and it made me feel well and truly down EVERY SINGLE DAY (was there for about 2 years). For about 3 months prior to putting in my resignation i was also already working on a side project that started getting legs and had started to bring in ramen profitable google ads profit so that It allowed me to quit work and still be able to eat whilst not touching to much of savings along with also paying for some small amazon servers to keep the service running. I thought what the hey, lets give it a go so i quit. Shocked everyone, including parents but i just couldn't go on any longer. It hurt to much... and IT in banks just totally suck. Also like the article says planned an exercise regime, my work hours for my currently little side project and hanging to start on Peter Norvig and Andrew Ng's classes when they start. Never felt this excited in a while. I think the caveat though is that while being unemployed (currently like I am) is better then having a lousy job , not being able to put food on the table is lousier then a lousy job. I guess this article applies to people who aren't financially struggling cause i know some people who would take ANY job that came their way right now.

pagekalisedown 15y ago
How are you going to deal with employers that will only hire people that are already employed if / when you have to look for a job?
- alexro 15y ago
  Just pass on them - these 'employers' are not worth working for anyway.
- sidman 15y ago
  Hopefully thats not an issue, i plan to train myself more during this period of down time. Just cause im not going to the office doesn't mean im going to loose my skills. If anything im going to be learning a lot more things then i did at work. If they care whether i am currently employed or not if i do need to join the work force again then i guess screw'em, they aren't looking for the right kinds of things.

codelion 15y ago

Ahem, How the hell are you supposed to feed yourself ? Not everyone has enough savings, some have family responsibilities as well.

retube 15y ago
Yeah, agreed. It's all very well pontificating about the unjustness of having a crappy job, being "under-paid", not doing anything "worthwhile" or apparently bettering mankind. But I know from personal experience that having any job, any job at all, and earning a crust is a damn sight better than earning nothing at all.
- pavel_lishin 15y ago
  Depression beats starvation any day of the week.
JoeAltmaier 15y ago
I get the point, but nobody has to go hungry in America. There's food for you if you just ask. My old Minister used to say "A person can have all the morals they can afford". Applies to out-of-work folks, and to America as well - we need not let anyone go hungry.
- rexreed 15y ago
  Spoken like someone who doesn't have a family to feed, clothe, and/or shelter.
  - JoeAltmaier 15y ago
    Huh? 51 years old, putting 3 through college. Been out of work for 6 months at a time. Currently dissolved my consulting business to go back to work for "the man" (though truthfully am vesting equity, not all bad). I understand sheltering the family can be a burden, yes. But hungry? Never. Lets use some other euphemism for hardship. Your family, church, community, government will not let you go hungry if you have the wit to stand in line.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

mathattack 15y ago

IMHO - There is a ring of truth to this, but it does not seem so profound. When I was unemployed (2008) it was depressing because the market was awful. But... I was able to work full time at improving my health (no "I'm working too hard to go the gym" excuse!) and finding new work. The fear of poverty is depressing, but not as bad as working awful hours without the time to improve one's situation. It is very easy to say, "Better to go hungry and wait for the perfect job." I think it is more realistic to say, "Don't take the first job that comes along. Be sure whatever you do is at least moving you in the right direction."

VladRussian 15y ago

in Bay Area not much unemployment per.se. to provide enough material to talk about. Wrt. the lousy jobs - some of the youngsters what bust their chops at the local Starbucks also carry a full time load at 4 year colleges (though not Stanford/Berkeley) - somehow i can't imagine them whining "unemployment or a lousy job"

eazolan 15y ago
That's because the Starbucks job is just to get by until they graduate. Then they expect all their hard work to be rewarded and get a normal job. They will "whine" when they can't find anything.

uladzislau 15y ago

Any part time job even a lousy one is better than to be unemployed. It increases your self-esteem and motivates you. I just wouldn't go for full time because you won't have time to improve your situation, find a better job, networking etc.

ChristopherM 15y ago

I quit my job in the middle of June, I have to agree being "unemployed" definitely beats having a lousy job. In fact I haven't been this happy since the last time I was unemployed. I learned so much, worked on so many projects... The most amazing thing is that time slows down again, the weeks and months don't race by in a blur. I am currently learning Objective-C, openGL and how to develop iPhone applications. Sure I figured, why not write a game and see how it goes; writing the code will be the easy part. I look forward to learning about the apple release process, marketing, doing user studies, reviewing the feedback... I give myself til the end of 2012, if the game or game(s) are successful I will continue. Otherwise maybe I will consider moving from software engineering into product management. The thrill and challenge of writing code is gone, the isolation one feels developing code has become too much; while I can understand other developers I've learned that I am not really like them. I enjoy working with various team players, executives, customers. I like going to meetings where I am an active participant, I like being thrown into the deep end of the pool where I have to figure things out on the fly. I love making decisions and taking full responsibility for them. Unemployed? Yeah, it's the happiest time of my life. Stress completely vanished. Not even looking for a job, haven't even updated LinkedIn so very few people even know I'm not "working".

Hyena 15y ago

Comments to this post seem largely divided between people who identify heavily with their employment and people who identify heavily with their activity. For the former, unemployment is terrible. For the latter, it's merely a financial issue.