Smoothing the Rough Road of Job Loss

The pandemic has meant a dreadful year for most, but losing your job on top of it can be downright terrifying. Whatever reason you have for no longer having a job, it is one of the hardest experiences to endure.

It is of no comfort for anyone to tell you that there are millions of people in your situation. You know life has to go on, but how do you deal with a job loss?

Learn new skills – free of charge

In your dire situation, you may realize that your lack of skills may well be holding you back. But what if you don’t have money to spend on learning a new skill – after all, you’ve lost your job! Losing a job may well mean that it is time to up your game, and while you’re out of work, you can use the time on your hands to learn some new skills.

One of the positives of the lockdown is that learning has gone online and there are seriously many free online courses available to you. Many of them provide excellent short courses and programs so why not use the time to improve where you are currently. Your reward will be when you apply for a new job and you can boast with some additional skills.

Reinvent yourself

What you offered your company and people, in general, may require revamping. If the pandemic has kept you at home, you’ll notice things have changed, life has changed. You will need to make yourself more relevant to the market place.

We aren’t talking about learning new skills, as mentioned above, but rather increasing your market value. As a person, your services and products have to be reinvented if you want to stay competitive in the new ‘virus’ world we’re living in.

People and the marketplace have changed and you have to invest in yourself and come up with new ideas. Websites like Facebook and LinkedIn are great online networking tools if you’ve been laid off and these sites keep you informed of trade groups that focus on your industry and skills.

Be wary of scammers

COVID-19 has seen many scammers rise up to prey on vulnerable people. Their aim is to offer you so-called ‘financial relief.’ There are so many people who have lost the little bit of money they had and then attempts to recoup their losses have simply meant even more expense with expensive legal help.

Look out for all kinds of loan applications. Recognize the fake from the genuine. Genuine credit providers don’t first demand an administrative fee to process a loan application, and they certainly don’t willy nilly approve loans without doing a thorough risk analysis. Also, they must be registered with the National Credit Regulator.

Rainy day savings

Many people haven’t sufficiently saved for a rainy day. Ideally, the idea is to start saving with your first job. That’s the beauty of MatchFinancial as they offer excellent advice on all kinds of situations and how to meet them all.

You’ll discover rainy days tips to keep you out of debt and overspending. An emergency fund will cover you if you are retrenched and it can cover things such as your bond or your rent while you wait to re-establish yourself. Saving money to cover the cost of emergencies such as job loss is one of the best ways to manage your finances.

The reason for this is that you avoid the risk of having to ask for a loan to cover the cost of unforeseen financial nightmares. Ideally, you should have been saving as much as you could so you could ride the storm of job loss. Nonetheless, it is never too late to glean useful information on how to save.