Unemployment - is it personal or systemic?

The unemployment rate still sits at a around 7%.  Million of Americans, blue and white collar workers, have experienced long term unemployment.  But the 2008/2009 recession didn’t just impact the US.  Unemployment in many other Western nations is even higher.  

What’s different, is how unemployment and job seeking varies from country to country.  Who the unemployed blame for their problems, the self help industry that continues to grow and a different approach by employers, are all areas of extreme differences around the world.  

MIT sociologist Ofer Sharone, in his new book Flawed System/Flawed Self: Job Searching and Unemployment Experiences, looks at the personal impacts of these different approaches to unemployment and to job hunting.

My conversation with Ofer Sharone: