The number of people who are long-term unemployed i.e.12 months or more, is likely to exceed 100,000 at the moment. The evidence is that their chances of re-employment diminish the longer the period of unemployment. The traditional view of the difficulty with being unemployed for a long time is that skills become stale or irrelevant.

However, research in Denmark in 2007 suggested that a hugely important factor is that the long-term unemployed become increasingly isolated from the network of people that are in employment or are only recently unemployed. This matters because surveys showed that employers recruit largely through informal networks. The “I have the man for you” type of recommendation, emanating from linkages of people known to each other, counts for more in filling jobs than formal interviewing and screening carried out by recruitment and other agencies. The information about an individual from the network will contain all his social, family and
work related characteristics. No formal approach to recruitment can do this so thoroughly or at
such low cost.

Networks are channels through which information is obtained, problems tackled and business conducted. Most people are almost unconsciously part of naturally grown networks. These centre on work, family, social connections, education and so on. Networks intertwine the social and business aspects of our lives. They carry all sorts of information which enable us to run our lives better and avoid pitfalls. Not least, these networks enable us to get work, whether that is a few hours doing somebody’s garden or linking up with someone in a high tech company which is looking for a full time person with skills that match your own.

But if you are unemployed, especially if you are among the long-term unemployed, your network is restricted. You are “out of the loop.” The natural networking environment provided by work is gone. Former colleagues tend to drop out of your network because you now have less in common and they may feel awkward or guilty because they still have a job. Long-term unemployed people may feel a sense of failure and thus do not mix readily with former colleagues. Isolation brings its own social difficulties, quite apart from the obstacle it poses to becoming re-employed. Government schemes to “upskill” and “retrain” reach relatively few of the unemployed and, in any case, may be missing the importance of being left out of important networks as a key issue for the long-term unemployed. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many of the unemployed see little point in new training. The lack of uptake of some FAS schemes tends to support this view. In the current climate it is all too easy, if you are unemployed, to give up and say “There are no jobs.” But this is not really true. There is still turnover in the jobs market, albeit at a much lower level than in the boom. The key question, raised in the research in Denmark, is “Why do some people get jobs and others do not?” The query is valid irrespective of whether the economy is growing or in recession. Long-term unemployment persists, even in the boom times, admittedly at a much reduced level. This clearly implies that there are unemployed people who are not able
to re-enter the workforce, after some months of unemployment, even when times are good.

While lack of education and skills may present barriers to getting a job, the problem of obtaining full information about an employee, (or indeed employer) would still present problems, even if skill deficiencies were not an obstacle. The way in which people who are unemployed find a matching employer is not seamless. The unemployed may not know that there is an employer there who needs them. Even if they do discover this basic fact, they may know nothing else about what it is like to work for this employer. The job may look attractive on paper but working 

conditions and the general “atmosphere” of the workplace may not be conducive. How do they uncover the truth?

Equally the employer may know nothing about the applicant, other than that they look good on paper. But how motivated is he? What sort of social skills has he? Would he upset the balance in an existing smooth functioning team? Interviews, assessments, recruitment agencies, aptitude tests and recommendations from previous employers help to form such a judgement but how much can they be trusted?

The Danish researchers suggest that these avenues of investigation of potential employees by employers are not regarded as highly trustworthy. Based on their surveys, 61% of companies always or mostly used word of mouth through employees to announce new job vacancies. In 64% of cases employers regarded recommendations from their own employees as “decisive” or of “great importance” when filling posts. An oral recommendation from a former employer was also seen as carrying significant weight. However, recommendations from employment agencies, educational institutions and written testimonials from former employers were less highly regarded.

The research also indicated that employers were extremely sensitive to the length of a candidate’s period of unemployment when hiring. All in the survey felt there were particular risks connected with hiring those with a long period of unemployment behind them. On this evidence, the long-term unemployed are heavily dependent on their own contacts with the labour market if they are to get work. They need “word of mouth” recommendation from existing employees to overcome the perceived handicap of having been unemployed for a long time.

The research went on to look at how good the ties of the unemployed were with the labour market. It was found that 41% of the long-term unemployed live alone as compared to only 20% of employed people. Moreover, only 35% of the long-term unemployed lived with a partner who was employed as compared to 69% of those who were employed. Weak ties with the labour market among the long-term unemployed were also evident through the employment status of their friends. The survey showed that only 36% of the long-term unemployed had no unemployed friends as compared to 82% of those employed.

Networking is important in business but it would appear that it is vital for the long-term unemployed if they are to hope to re-enter the workforce. The long-term unemployed need to strengthen their links to people who are employed. There is little point in having networks based solely on people who are unemployed. Networks are cheap to establish and maintain. There are benefits to be gleaned by employed people from having links to those unemployed, if the social awkwardness can be put aside. We need to appreciate more the context in which unemployed people find themselves and not concentrate exclusively on training as a palliative.