http://money.cnn.com/2010/06/16/news/economy/unemployed_need_not_apply/index.htm
I wouldn't even wait until the layoff comes. I would start looking if there's even a hint that you could lose your job. It's much easier to gain employment while you're employed than unemployed. I've seen it first hand.
The article doesn't mention it but part of the problem is that companies are getting so many resumes that one of the easiest things to do is focus on the currently employed applicants first because the logic goes, 'if they're currently employed, there must be a good reason for it'. Also, the longer you stay unemployed, the harder it is to find a job with a bigger gap in employment history, literally every HR person/job expert will tell you that.
From my own observations, the few job openings i've seen at my place, the the people who fill those positions were employed at the time of application. I think there were maybe one or two unemployed people but they were unemployed for a MAXIMUM of two months and took to job hunting as a full time job with overtime.
It's ridiculous that there are people out there who think they can sit on their unemployment benefits without any repercussions. The longer you've been out of work, the harder it's going to be to find work and these people are just shooting themselves in the foot, especially because the likelyhood of another extension to unemployment is very very low.
Another observation i've seen with this phenomenon is that in some instances, if someone jumps ship to another job, companies won't hire another person to replace them and just give that work to someone else. I've seen that a couple of times (and i've had some extra work handed to me as a result) and i'm wondering how much that's contributing to the slow recovery. Every time that happens, that's one less job available in the economy.
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