From the vault of the obvious

Unless you’re independently wealthy being unemployed doesn’t make for a happy camper. Back in my 20s I left a good job to pursue a career in something vaguely related to what I did for a living and it was a huge mistake. I got let go from the new job (okay, fired). I didn’t worry too much at first but then after a fruitless job search I realized my future was kind of bleak. I focused on freelance work to get myself out of my financial crisis and I really invested in job searching. But it was hard — after a few months of unemployment I was not only discouraged about my prospects but also deeply unhappy. Not the best combo to motivate yourself. I dreaded turning my computer on to comb through endless job postings and not find anything I was interested in ... perhaps because I was just losing interest in everything.

The recent study from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) National Wellbeing report, in the UK, “showed that 45 per cent of unemployed people rated their ‘life satisfaction’ as either low (five to six out of 10) or very low (zero to four out of 10).”

When I found a job after my unemployment streak, my bad mood improved immediately. In fact, years later I can still recall how drastic the change was — one week I could barely get out of bed, the next I was skipping (to work). As for the UK report, although it doesn’t discover anything revolutionary — employment makes people happier — it has some other interesting findings worth noting:

• People in professional occupations (managers, directors and senior officials) had the highest average score (7.7 out of 10)
• The higher scores were given by workers with more responsibility and control over their work (and also, ahem, higher incomes… duh)
• People in the process, plant and machine operatives group had the lowest score (still much higher than the unemployed at 7.3 out of 10)