I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about how big businesses can redeem themselves and resurrect a work life for those millions who’ve lost jobs due to economic downturns, domino theories, corporate greed and just about every other reason people lose jobs. Here are my ideas I’d like to share, thirteen of them and counting:

1.      Companies should advertise when they have massive layoffs. They could place full page ads in major metropolitan dailies like The New York Times and dozens of others across the country saying they have good dedicated workers and categorize the areas or job titles which they fall under with an appeal to other companies to contact them if they need any of the services these about-to-be laid off employees (listed in ad by job title only) provide and that they are being laid off through no fault of their own.

2.      Companies should pay attention to the various incentives offered by the federal and state governments to get disadvantaged workers achieve independence, self sufficiency or get back on their feet—including ex offenders and welfare recipients. Incentives include Worker Opportunity Tax Credit offered to employers who hire those disadvantaged populations and something called bonding. That’s free insurance provided by the government for hiring ex offenders. If the new hiree commits a crime of theft, etc., the employer is guaranteed to be reimbursed.

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Preface:  My job search took place during the height of the recession, and although unemployment is currently declining, there are still too many who are out of work.

An article I read during the summer of 2009 stated that for every one job opportunity, there were five people out of work and ready to fill that position. The article also compared job search to a game of musical chairs. It was an interesting analogy, however, I did not agree with the analogy then, and I still disagree with it today.

Job loss represents a change in your life.  The stability of a daily or weekly routine is replaced with uncertainty.  Unemployment insurance and savings are now your lifeline, and you must learn to live on diminishing resources.  Your employment search, in turn, becomes a fight for survival, similar to the way our ancestors had to hunt for food and shelter in order to survive.  In both cases, the only way to succeed is to be among the most fit and cunning. Those who are equipped with a strong set of survival skills will always succeed, no matter how demanding the environment is.

It was in that spirit that I wrote the following piece:The Importance of Networking…

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For the informal group of jobless New Yorkers who had exhausted their 99 weeks of unemployment benefits, the Occupy Wall Street movement came as a dream fulfilled.

As the protests took root in Zuccotti Park, the 99ers found a mass of people who cared about the plight of the jobless and wanted to do something about it. The emergence of the Occupy movement, one 99er said, felt “like the early stages of a revolution.” And then the question arose: “What do America’s jobless want?” As the latest episode of the reality series, “F**ked: The United States of Unemployment,” shows, the 99ers had some answers.

Visit salon.com to view episode 5 of the reality series on long-term unemployment. Also available on YouTube.