Welcome to the age of extreme job anxiety | Zoe Williams

Young, old, midlife – whatever your age, gender or sector, the unemployment crisis is hitting us all. The only way through it is together

The personal experience of long-term unemployment is one people rarely share, for completely understandable reasons. There’s a bit of superstition that saying it out loud will bed it in, and there’s always one person in 100 who will choose to explain away the misfortune as your own personal failing.

Even if they’re clearly in the grip of superstitions of their own – trying to ward off your fate for themselves – it’s hard not to take criticism personally in such a personal situation. The conventions of human interaction are that you shouldn’t really mention a cloud unless you have a silver lining handy. For instance: after the financial crash in 2008, I remember hearing a couple interviewed on the radio who had both been made redundant when the private school they worked for closed down. After describing months of fruitless job applications, the wife ended saying they’d been able to spend much more time in their allotment, and she reckoned their rocket yield alone had saved them a small fortune. That, I thought, is a remarkable and yet probably universal commitment to looking on the bright side.