I Was A Young Jobseeker Before Coronavirus. I’m Worried I’ll Never Get Back On My Feet
On 1 December 2008, I was 13-years-old. I don’t remember much of that day – it was 12 years ago after all – but I remember seeing, on our school library’s clunky purple iMac, the front page of Yahoo! News: a picture of George W. Bush, and the headline “RECESSION”.
I wasn’t quite sure what recession meant, only that it was probably pretty bad. Loud whispers bounced off the popcorn walls around our tiny library from “classic George Bush” to “this would have never happened if Kerry was elected” to general indifference. The idea of a global financial crisis seemed so far away from the world my classmates and I lived in; a world of pending winter holidays, upcoming assignments, that new Twilight movie and awkwardly dancing to Beyonce’s Single Ladies at the school dance.
At home, while my father sat me down and assured me we would be fine and his job was secure, many of my classmates were not so lucky.
I think coming of age during the worst global recession in a century means I had a sense of insecurity, particularly financial insecurity, embedded within me. I saw what the world was like for family, and for friends in their 20s, newly graduated and ready to take on the world only to be greeted by a world with no job prospects. I always hoped that when I reached my 20s, I would have a stable and financially secure future with a ‘safe’ job.
Suddenly, it seemed like most jobs I applied to were on hold as businesses operated under stay-at-home orders, or, worse, shuttered.
Yet here I am now, a decade later, jobless after a year recovering from serious injuries sustained in an accident. This was apparently the best time to get a job. However, I have yet to hear back from most of the 100 or so jobs I had applied to so far in 2020. And when I do hear back, it’s usually through a cold, unpersonalised rejection email. What’s wrong with me, I started to wonder, completely dejected and hopeless but determined to carry on.
Then came...
