Networking While Long-Term Unemployed: Why Long-Term Unemployment Will Likely Persist Long after the COVID-19 Pandemic Recedes

Abstract

By early 2021, due to the economic downturn accompanying the COVID-19 pandemic, over four million Americans were long-term unemployed (LTU). Getting rehired requires overcoming employer stigmas about LTU workers, which most LTU workers believe is most plausible with the help of referrals from social ties. While research on the structures and effects of networks abound, this paper examines the far less studied process of networking among LTU jobseekers. Exploring the networking process is imperative for understanding the emotional toll and structural obstacles facing LTU workers in the post–COVID-19 pandemic period. Going beyond individualizing explanations, I use in-depth interviews to uncover the structural conditions that make networking challenging for all LTU jobseekers. Contrary to static conceptualizations of ties as social capital, a metaphor implying that ties are static resources, this paper argues that more attention needs to be paid to the processes and structural conditions that facilitate or hinder the activation or formation of socialties. Specifically, it shows that, under conditions of precarity and stigma, networking can undermine workers’ identities as valued and moral, leaving them feeling discouraged and ethically challenged in a way similar to used car salespeople.