Unemployment

Many images are evoked by the term unemployment: children in rags, soup kitchens, fat employers, government inaction and movies of the Great Depression when men walked hours in search of a day’s work. In these images, depending on one’s values and beliefs, the tendency is to want to blame someone or something, be it business, individuals or politicians. The fact is that many countries are plagued with high unemployment. In some countries the rate is as high as 12 percent, and in certain age groups, such as youth, it is 20 percent. In many countries on the African continent, where people struggle for basic survival, the category is not even considered.

In the early 1960s there were some who argued that the time was coming when the majority of people would not work; a minority would be employed and provide for the rest. What is happening? Is there a limit to the world’s potential or need for work? Is the implication that a portion of the population is going to be chronically out of work? Or delightfully so?

Being unemployed is not simply being “out of work.” When a company lays off, fires or downsizes, the persons affected may continue to work doing chores at home, doing volunteer service in church and community and looking for a new job—a form of work itself. Unemployment is the situation in which remuneration for one’s labor is absent despite the desire and need for such pay. For people in the Western world, where identity is tied deeply to occupation, the experience is usually devastating; they have become nobodies. But on a personal level unemployment is a time for reassessment and deep spiritual work. On a societal and national level unemployment is a stewardship issue, since it reflects systemic sin and lack of social creativity in providing opportunities for all citizens to use their gifts and talents for the common good.

The Reality Today

Once unemployment was considered a major sin. Now it is often regarded as inevitable. Many blue-collar jobs were lost or moved to different labor markets. While there used to be a safe haven in white-collar jobs, suddenly there is downsizing and reengineering of the firm or corporation. New terms such as underemployment are now part of the vocabulary. What does this mean? What is one to do? Does the Bible have something to say about all this?

In some parts of the world unemployment reaches astronomic proportions, such as the 30 percent unemployed in the city of Nairobi. In many Third World cities people may spend up to seven years looking for their first job when they move to the city, since the rural farmlands are now decimated into ever smaller, unproductive units that cannot sustain a family. Unemployment in such areas is harder to define, since most people can provide some of their daily needs for food and shelter from the land unless there is drought, famine or war. Living as we do in a global village, the problem is not merely “their problem” but ours. Robert Kaplan draws a disturbing picture of the disparities between countries:

Think of a stretch limo in the potholed streets of New York City, where homeless beggars live. Inside the limo are the air-conditioned post-industrial regions of North America, Europe, the emerging Pacific Rim, and a few other isolated places, with their trade summetry and computer-information highways. Outside is the rest of mankind, going in a completely different direction. (p. 60)

In the industrial and postindustrial nations unemployment has taken on a new face. Instead of lifelong tenure with a corporation, school system or government office, most people increasingly face a lifetime of scramble from job to job. Changes in the work world are taking place faster than people can cope. Workers today are faced with unsettling trends: from production to service, from generalist to specialist, from repetitive tasks to intervention (especially by means of the computer), from age-specific education to lifelong learning, from working with tangibles to working with intangibles, and from hard work to stressful work. But one of the most threatening trends is the change from a lifelong career to multiple short-term assignments. This means that most people will experience some form of unemployment in their lifetime, even if the period of transition is brief.

The banking industry is a classic case study (see Aley). Layoffs in this industry, primarily through attrition, are not likely to lead to employment in the same field but rather the use of one’s experience of handling finances and people in a related field, usually at a lower salary. Vocational guidance once was the “what am I going to be when I grow up” dilemma of young people. It is now a lifelong discipline. We must also learn to see unemployment itself as a spiritual discipline.

Unemployment and Idleness

How shall we regard unemployment? It does occur in Scripture. Jesus pictures workers waiting to be hired as day laborers without commenting on the morality of the men waiting to be hired or those who did not get hired (Matthew 20:1). More commonly we find reference to the willfully unemployed or idle. This is clearly a sin (2 Thes. 3:10-13). Even in retirement, persons will continue to work doing chores and volunteering so long as they are able. For the independently wealthy or the recently retired, indulging perpetual idleness and leisure is spiritually dangerous (Proverbs 6:9, 10-11; Proverbs 10:5; Proverbs 19:15, 24; Proverbs 20:4).

While these texts are clear, surely there is a difference between sheer laziness and forced unemployment. If so, why do these texts not express it? One assumption is that there was no structural unemployment in Bible times. Another is that there was always work to be done. In an agrarian society of small farmers both assumptions were undoubtedly true. Most people were self-employed in a trade or worked as farmers in the context of an extended family structure in which kith and kin cared for each other, especially during times of famine, drought and economic difficulty. Also there were not carefully defined “jobs” as we know them, separate from the rest of life, but only “work” of various kinds in which everyone was involved, most of which was home-based and a family concern.

It is true that some people suffer unemployment because of poor performance and failure to keep learning in their job. These people may find in unemployment a challenge from God to work, to make a full-time job out of looking for work, to explore the reasons for their lack of really “getting into” their jobs or even their outright refusal to do more than the minimum required. Those suffering “outplacement,” as it is euphemistically called, need to cultivate employment as an attitude. One key principle is to insist that the displaced person think of finding a job as being a job in itself.

One should have the same discipline in finding work as holding a regular job—starting time, ending time, dressing for work and so on. Maintaining a frame of mind of actively working to meet one’s most important need—to be employed—is essential. There are always alternatives and choices. My father (Stevens), a business executive, worked in the shipping room for a time when the company had to become “mean and lean.” My father (Mestre) was working for a company which fell on hard times. His work was designing, but for several weeks he was assigned to clean up the factory, as it was the only work available. Effort, skill level and attitude are key factors. “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord” (Col. 3:23). This is a text both for those looking for remunerated employment and for those who feel they are underemployed. But for many people the causes of unemployment are more complex. How are we to think and act when the whole economy is disrupted, when unemployment is clearly not the result of one’s effort, attitude or performance?

Unemployment as a Structural Evil

When companies go bankrupt, when oversupply forces the government to reduce production until the situation has normalized, when the stock market in Japan crashes and the rest of the economic world suffers major reverses, when the economy of a country requires structural unemployment in order to sustain high salaries, we are dealing with a much more complex reality.

Echoing the view of many economists and sociologists, P. G. Schervitch argues that statistics of unemployment “elude any simple interpretation—the simple fact is that unemployment is not a unidimensional reality” (Schervitch, p. 2). Actually the redundant—people who lost their jobs because those jobs ceased to exist—represent only about one-quarter of the unemployed. Workers found their first jobs following redundancy surprisingly quickly. One-third found new jobs before becoming unemployed (Daniel, p. 3). Workers displaced by major redundancies tended to be more able and skilled, with good work records and substantial periods of service. They went straight to the head of the line. Those who suffered most were the less attractive job seekers, such as the longer-term unemployed already on the register, young people entering the job market for the first time and people returning to the labor market after a break for some reason (Daniel, p. 4).

How are we to respond to this? Part of our Christian ministry is not only to individual persons but to structures, organizations, nations and the principalities and powers. Those of us who are employed should help individual unemployed persons to take appropriate creative initiatives to seek work, retrain and become productive again. We must also address the systemic factors that make unemployment a social problem. As someone said, “There, to the displeasure of God, go all of us.” God’s will is that a nation thrive in providing opportunities for all of its citizens to use their gifts and talents for the common good.

The earliest extant Christian writings contain admonitions for Christian communities to provide employment for the newly converted. Thomas Aquinas took this matter farther by regarding the efforts of employers in opening up remunerated work on a grand scale as an act of virtuous magnanimity (Gossé, p. 8). The contemporary activist William Droel calls for public discipleship:

All workers—the employed, the unemployed, homemakers, volunteers, business leaders and students—are called to exercise their voting franchise, their lobbying ability, their collective strength in unions and professional associations, and their wits on the job to affect company policies, to advance legislation, and to fashion other mechanisms aimed at building an economy in which all willing workers find employment. Economic structures do not arise by themselves. People establish them, set them in motion, and administer them. Therefore, people who are right thinking and acting can form and improve them. (Gossé, pp. 8-9)

The Spirituality of the Unemployed

Undoubtedly, for the unemployed there are difficult temptations to be overcome: to slip into self-pity, to wallow in being victimized by “the system,” to conclude they have lost their self-worth, to feel shamed before family, friends, neighbors and church. Like most others this crisis is both danger and opportunity. There is the opportunity of reaffirming our identities in terms of Whose we are rather than what we do. There is the invitation to rediscover how God has made us with talents and personalities fitting us for occupations, possibly several. There is the discipline of vocational guidance and the growth that can come from exploring what can be learned about ourselves from the painful process of being “outplaced.”

Being unemployed can drive a wedge into our family, church relations and community as the hurt person vents anger and frustration on others, or feels unable to face people. Being unemployed can be the occasion for a root of bitterness to grow in our relationship with God for denying us meaningful and remunerated employment. But being unemployed can also become the means of strengthening our relationships with God and others as we seek the prayers, help and advice of those closest to us. This interior work, alongside the exterior work of looking for a job, can be pleasing to God and work done to God himself (Col. 3:23).

There are inevitably hard choices to be made if we are determined to find work. Should one relocate to a region where employment is increasing, or is unemployment insurance the safety net one needs? Is maintaining one’s roots more important than being employed? Should we take any work just to be employed, even if we are unsuited or unmotivated? These are other questions that need to be considered in the context of a caring Christian community, such as a small group in the church. Few people can gain perspective on their unemployment without the support of a nurturing community. Some churches and communities sponsor support groups for the unemployed to meet and share their pilgrimage. Books, especially those dealing with grief and unemployment, can be of substantial help, as can a day retreat for prayer and reflection (Gossé, pp. 37-41). While we are looking for work we are working and doing some internal work that may prove to turn the tragedy of unemployment into a discovery of the sufficiency of God’s grace. Meanwhile the employed may pray for the forgiveness of society’s sins and in whatever context God has placed us—teacher, neighbor, citizen, businessperson, government employee—to do our own work in such a way that we not only thrive ourselves but equip others, so humanizing the world in line with God’s intention.

» See also: Business Ethics

» See also: Calling

» See also: Career

» See also: Firing

» See also: Loyalty, Workplace

» See also: Networking

» See also: Part-Time Employment

» See also: Self-Esteem

» See also: Vocational Guidance

References and Resources

J. Aley, “Where the Laid-Off Workers Go,” Fortune, October 30, 1995, 45-48; D. D. Daniel, The Unemployed Flow (London: PSI Publishing, 1990); J. Gossé, The Spirituality of Work: Unemployed Workers, (Chicago: ACTA Publications, 1993); R. D. Kaplan, “The Coming Anarchy,” Atlantic Monthly, February 1994, 44-76; P. G. Schervitch, The Structural Determinants of Unemployment (New York: Academic Press, 1983).

—Michel Mestre and R. Paul Stevens