Unemployment is like a
disease. It spreads through previously healthy
communities, it feeds on
optimism and
work ethic and turns them into
hopelessness,
helplessness,
poverty and
apathy. And most sickening of all, it's
unnecessary.
At any given time in any economy, there is literally far too much work available for the workforce to support. Much of this work is currently voluntary and unpaid but in theory, there is no real reason why it should be. The New Deal that early 20th Century America entered into is an example of this principle at work, as it were.
When you're unemployed, everything is an effort. Getting up in the morning may be the hardest thing you do all day but because of that, it magically becomes an incredibly hard thing to do. Going to sign on or to cash a giro is harder work than a 12-hour shift in a factory. Actually going to an interview is a major acheivement - when i was unemployed i was proud of myself just for going and never mind whether i got the job or not.
The other thing that you have to get used to is pennilessness. I had no money. Not in the sense of "I can't afford a new telly, i have no money." More like "Roll on Thursday - then i can eat again". And being skint is a fulltime job. You don't just stop at 6pm and go home and have your tea like everyone else. You don't get a weekend off from being on the dole where you go back to having a few quid in the bank and can afford a pint again. You live with it all the time.
I've had some really shitty times in my life but i can honestly say that uneployment was one of the worst. It made me ill, it made me clinically depressed, it made me all the stereotypes that people like Norman Tebbit used to trot out - I was lazy, shiftless, didn't want to work. Bugger work, i didn't want to wake up in the morning. Unemployment sucks.