I am single, middle-aged, unemployed, and living off of my savings. And I’m scared.
I’m scared for many reasons, not the least of which is that savings eventually run out, no matter how much I have squirrelled away, no matter how frugally I live.
I’m scared because the field I have worked in for the last 15 years — adult English as a second language (ESL) teaching — has been changing so dramatically that I am no longer able to find a steady job or any work other than substituting, for which I am really grateful.
I am not eligible for Employment Insurance as I haven’t worked enough hours in the last year and social assistance, which comes in at less than $650 a month, would only be available to me once I have depleted my savings.
Jobs with stability and security are few and far between and many ESL teachers are after very few positions. After teaching for so long, it’s difficult, depleting and discouraging to have to constantly scrounge for work.
The ESL bubble began to burst a few years ago due to the economic crash of 2008 and dramatic changes in immigration and international student visa rules. The great school I was working at closed in 2011. Since then I have been working contract to contract, with greater unemployed spaces in between.
I have made some poor choices along the way. I lived in denial that my job would end when rumours began to fly in 2010 that the owner of the school was either going to sell or close up shop.
But I was so convinced that I could make it work, that my years of experience and my love of teaching would render everything OK and that I could fairly easily find more work.
Denial is a bugger.
For a few years after I was laid off, I was getting enough work contracts to make me feel, if not confident, at the very least relieved. But the work has continued to contract and for the last several months, I have worked less than I ever have.
My choices — or more specifically my lack of them —have been more than partially responsible for the situation I find myself in now.
But whatever the reasons, I am continuing to rack my brain to figure out what I can retrain in or a way to make short-term contracts, tutoring and substituting enough to live on.
I have cut my spending back to all but essentials and am looking into changing my housing situation, which at present consists of a small one-bedroom apartment with a rent of almost $1,000 a month.
I am applying for B.C. Housing but the wait list is at best several years long. It considers first, as it should, those on permanent disability, those with children, and seniors. I have read that there are 14,000 people on the waiting list.
And the city? It now considers $950/month for a bachelor suite to be affordable housing.
So, in an attempt to get help figuring out my job situation, I went to the WorkBC office in my neighbourhood.
WorkBC, provincially funded, has a series of employment centres that provide job seekers with employment finding workshops, resume help, etc. It also can aid in the process of accessing re-training funding. That is an incredible opportunity for people who know, or discover, what they would like to retrain in.
After several career planning workshops, testing, and the like, I am frustratingly no further ahead in having any idea what I can do. Unless you have a clear new career goal, it can be extremely difficult to figure out your next step. My WorkBC case manager, hamstrung by funding limitations, has told me to come and see her only once I know what I want.
I am constantly scrambling trying to think of how I can, at almost 50 years old, put my skills to use in this job market. I network where I can, volunteer and apply for any position that has even remotely to do with my skill set.
Some people have suggested that I move — to another province or another country where there might be more work and the cost of living would be lower. But Vancouver is my home — it is where my people are, my supports, my life. Is the only real solution to leave?
I don’t expect the government to support me indefinitely but to be cut off from any financial support at all is not just terrifying but counterintuitive. The government may well end up supporting me anyway if (or when)
I deplete my savings and move on to social assistance.
A little bit of financial assistance and more clear and direct help with finding work would go a long way. Again, it is not the case manager’s fault, lest it seems I am biting the hand that has tried to help me — it is all about funding and provincial and federal government priorities.
Karen Segal is a Vancouver freelance writer who will happily form a support group with other unemployed people in the city.
