When employment is worse than unemployment

If you have been out of work for a while, chances are you have from time to time dealt with feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness, and despair. Cheer up! It could be worse - you could have a job. A statistic I heard on MSNBC the other day suggests that our gainfully employed counterparts are feeling no better than we are. According to MetLife's Ninth Annual Study of Employee Benefits Trends, a whopping 36% of all employees said that if they had the choice, they would be working somewhere else this time next year. This figure is an interesting bookend to an employment year that began with the Conference Board reporting in January 2010 that for the first time since it started surveying worker satisfaction in the late 1980s, a majority of American workers - 55% - said they were dissatisfied with their jobs. In October of last year, that dissatisfaction surfaced in turnover statistics when the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that voluntary terminations (people quitting their jobs) exceeded involuntary ones (layoffs and firings) for the first time since the recession began. Another survey, conducted by Harris Interactive for Plateau Systems, states that while most workers are satisfied with their jobs and not actively looking for new ones, 74% of them would consider leaving their job if they learned of another offer, with salary given as the leading reason for the switch. As for whether having a job is better for your mental health than not having one, recent research from Australia suggests that the answer to that question depends on the job. Researchers at the Australian National University found that unemployed individuals who take low-quality jobs with low pay, little job security, low levels of control over work, or stressful working conditions actually fare worse mentally than those who remain unemployed. What all this suggests is that while in theory at least, having work beats having none, the devil is in the details. If you have certain talents or abilities and cannot find business jobs that make use of them, then if you can afford to, keep looking and don't settle for just any job lest you accept one that leaves you feeling worse for having it. By Sandy Smith Sandy Smith is a veteran freelance writer, editor and public relations professional who lives in Philadelphia. Besides blogging for BusinessWorkForce.com, he has written for numerous publications and websites, would be happy to do your resume, and is himself actively seeking career opportunities on Nexxt. Check out his LinkedIn profile and read his other posts on BusinessWorkForceBlog.com.