Unemployed Graphic Designer Laid Off 2 Years Ago ‘At Wits End’ After Being Unable To Find A Job — ‘I Have Never Experienced Such Utter Failure’
For many, the job market is appearing harder to crack than ever before.
fizkes | Shutterstock Many are aware that the job market is a mess right now. Despite what seems like plenty of open positions, job seekers are struggling to get hired, no matter how qualified they are.
One woman found herself in this exact situation after being laid off from her job, and not finding a new one for two years.
A laid-off graphic designer absolutely could not find a new job.
A graphic designer who was laid off two years ago took to Reddit to share her plight of a fruitless job search.
“I’ve been in my career (graphic design) for 14 years,” she explained. “I’ve never been crazy about my chosen career, but I’m a creative person, and it always seemed like the least unpalatable way to make a decent/steady living.”
mumininan | Canva Pro
While it worked for her for quite some time, everything has changed.
“That was true until the end of 2022 when I was laid off, which wasn’t the first time, but has definitely been the most disastrous layoff so far as I was plunged into the most dismal job market I have ever experienced.”
She truly has no idea what to do at this point.
“I have never experienced such utter failure and such a long, drawn-out job search before,” she said. “I’m completely at my wit’s end. I feel like I’m suddenly unhireable. I’m completely burnt out, and I can barely bring myself to care anymore.”
At this point, the former graphic designer feels completely apathetic towards the whole situation.
“The thing is, I don’t even want a job,” she stated. “The wages for my role have completely stagnated and even regressed, so that hasn’t even been much of a motivator.”
She’s thought about trying other career paths, but she just can’t settle on something.
“I’m constantly brainstorming about a different career path, or just any job that will pay the bills, but I have absolutely zero desire to become a project manager or a product designer or whatever other [expletive] corporate snoozefest I can Google,” she continued.
Karolina Kaboompics | Canva Pro
To make matters worse, she’s starting to seriously worry about her finances.
“I live in an expensive city, too,” she added. “My saving grace is my rent is relatively cheap for my area, and I split bills with my partner, who runs his own business. First I was living off my severance, then unemployment benefits, then my mom helped me out a bit, and now I’ve been living off my savings.”
“I’ve been very frugal and was able to get EBT benefits to help with food,” she stated. “I’ve stretched the money out longer than I thought I could, and I’m not totally in the red yet, but obviously … it won’t last forever.”
It’s become harder than ever to find a good job.
CNBC Make It said, “The job market might look solid on paper — unemployment is low, job openings are high — but the reality for many Americans on the job hunt tells a different story.”
To illustrate just how bad things are, they continued, “LinkedIn feeds are crowded with layoff announcements. Mentions of recruiters ghosting job applicants have more than doubled on Glassdoor since before the Covid-19 pandemic.”
An Aerotek survey confirmed that finding a job is indeed harder now. “Over 70% of job seekers said they felt they needed to exert more than an average amount of effort to find a job in this economy, and 67.7% felt their current job search was more difficult than their last one,” they said.
As the job market continues on this path of volatility, it will only become more difficult for people who need jobs to find them. It’s not surprising that people like this graphic designer are becoming extremely discouraged.
It seems like there’s little that can be done other than to wait it out.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer for YourTango who covers entertainment, news, and human interest topics.