Will I ever get a job? – Comparison between long-term and short-term unemployed academics

Once, people with tertiary education were guaranteed to get a good job. However, today, people of the same educational qualification can even have a higher unemployment rate compared with non-academics. The current manuscript deals with the question, how long-term unemployed differ from short-term unemployed academics. It is known that the long-term unemployed have a particularly unfavourable profile. To test this, we conducted a cross-sectional study among unemployed people with tertiary education in the Swiss canton of Zurich, who had registered at the personal employment service (PES). A total of 1,208 questionnaires were filled out completely and 278 only partially. This leaves a response quote of 42.2 %. The long-term unemployed attributed success in finding a job less to their own appearance and a head-hunter than the short-term unemployed. The long-term unemployed were significantly older than the short-term unemployed. No differences were found in terms of self-regulation, career adaptability, sex, nationality, and mental and physical health.