“In the past two weeks, I have been listening to several women who are out of work tell me they can’t find employment, or it is very difficult,” Joanne Cotten said. “These women are equipped with wonderful resumes. However, they’re the 50-year-old gang. What are 50-year-old women supposed to do?”

To go one step further, what are 50-year-old men with great resumes supposed to do?

Consider Bob, a 58-year-old engineer from Darien. When he arrived bright and early for work on Monday, March 3, Bob found a sign taped on the door. It said that the company where he’d been working for two years had closed permanently after 50 years in business. This was Bob’s fourth job loss in seven years.

Grace, a foreign language teacher and University of Chicago alumna, can feel Bob’s pain. Despite her linguistic skills, which include fluency in Russian, Grace’s position as a high school language instructor was cut two years ago.    

“When I tell them that they’re smart (and) they can own their own businesses, women look at me with glazed eyes as if it’s not believable. I think that’s the saddest part,” said Joanne, a small business owner from Darien. “Perhaps a change of venue is what they should think about, but it doesn’t appear that I’ve been able to reach any of them.”

From news anchors Mary Ann Childers and Diann Burns to teacher Grace and Bob the engineer, job cuts are cutting edge in the contemporary workplace. Unemployment is endemic and seems to be spreading from white to blue collars across our nation.

Don’t wait for Washington lawmakers to end unemployment. Each one of us can do something for the cause. Perhaps a lesson can be learned from our grandparents who survived the Great Depression. During the 1930s, unemployment rates under President Herbert Hoover hovered between 30 percent and 40 percent in major American cities. Although people were struggling financially, they still reached out to help each other.

In many communities, the spirit of charity persisted in the 1950s. Growing up in Joliet, Baby Boomer Elizabeth Smith recalls her father, Wally Gawenda, bringing strangers home for dinner. 

“My father worked as a tower man for the BJ & E Railroad in Joliet. As he walked to and from work along the railroad tracks, he would run into hobos on the tracks. He felt sorry for them, so he’d bring them home,” Smith said. “My mother, Juanita, would feed them. Since my father worked the swing shift, she was a little scared in case any of the men might return when she was home alone with the children. But she fed them. As a child, I thought it was really cool to see the strangers Dad brought home. Sometimes they’d leave with a lunch bag.” 

The following are observations I’ve made from a folding chair on the sidelines of life. Listed below are some little ways to make a big difference in reducing unemployment.

Tips for the unemployed

1. Look in the mirror: Forget your former job title and annual income. Who do you see smiling back at you? Consider not what you were trained to do, but what other skills, talents, interests and virtues you’ve developed in the past few years.

2. Stay social: Isolation can prove depressing and even dangerous for the unemployed. Accept party invitations; join a club; meet with friends for coffee. Be sure to tell everyone you’re looking for work so they’ll keep their ears open.

3. Volunteer: Forgetting about yourself and helping others provides soothing relief for anxiety and discouragement. Volunteering can lead to employment. My brother, Fred, died suddenly in 2005. At his wake, Carol, his widow, was offered a job at a day care center by a woman who recognized her as a volunteer room mother and playground supervisor at St. William Catholic Elementary School. Three years later, Carol still works at the day care center, and the toddlers love her.  

4. Settle for less: Less pay, a lesser job title. Sometimes less is more. Reduced responsibility means less stress and more opportunities to enjoy people with whom we work and play.  

5. Be grateful: The people who best endure unemployment are those who express gratitude often for the love of family, friends and the kindness of strangers.

Tips for investing in the unemployed

1. Don’t judge: Why someone has been unemployed for two years is no one’s business. We don’t see the whole picture.

2. Recognize their goodness: Enumerate the gifts and talents of an unemployed friend. Praise him or her for their kindness to others. Positive, encouraging words lift their spirits and give them confidence.

3. Encourage them: Invite an unemployed person over for dinner. Invite him over for a holiday. Buy her coffee and a sandwich at McDonald’s. Press $20 into his hand for gas money. Such actions make someone feel valued when unemployment can leave him or her feeling worthless.

4. Hire or advocate for them: If you own a business, hire an unemployed person. If you are a homeowner, hire an unemployed carpenter or electrician to do remodeling tasks.

5. Be there for them: Phone an unemployed friend periodically to see how she’s doing. Be a good listener when he needs to talk. Say a little prayer that she finds work. Each of us has some gift to give to an unemployed stranger or friend.