Poet Cecilia Knapp on unemployment

You would think that with something as important to our lives as a job, we’d be pretty open
about it with loved ones. But with 772,000 fewer payroll employees than before Covid-19
and more than two million still on furlough, new figures suggest too many of us are hiding
our unemployment woes from friends and family.

New research released today by Indeed shows nearly half (45%) of unemployed Britons are
hiding their job status from friends and family and over three quarters (78%) contemplate
keeping it entirely to themselves.

While the pandemic caused unemployment to rise to its highest level in nearly five years, it
did little to dispel the social stigma associated with being without a job: half (49%) say they
feel too embarrassed to talk about their employment struggles.

Aston spoke to Cecilia Knapp, young people’s laureate and Mikaela Elliot, senior evangelist for employer insights at Indeed to discuss the research and Cecilia alsodiscussed her role in inspiring those facing similar challenges to feel less alone by mentoring newly hired candidates to write their own poetry collection for the ‘Little Book of Big
Triumphs’.

Photo by Glenn Carstens Peter on Unsplash