What then happens to those who are out of work but have renewed hope? What will happen when their hopes are once again dashed and they return to a state of hopelessness? How might an organizational coach help those twice (or thrice) hit by unemployment? There is also the challenge associated with young adults who are seeking their first full time job. Will they ever find a job that matches their personal hopes and dreams? Will they ever know economic stability? How might an organizational coach assist these young men and women as they face this new (and potentially discouraging) economic reality?

There is one other factor we must add to this challenging condition. Many of the unemployed are men (Rosin, 2010). A large portion of the forever-lost jobs are in the manufacturing sector—which has traditionally been populated by men. Furthermore, many of the new jobs require higher levels of education and training—which have recently been most often achieved by women (Rosen, 2010). It is fair for us to ask, “Where have all the men gone [with regard to jobs and preparation for professional careers]?” They have joined the organizational underground.

“Patch work” employment

Some of the unemployed have neither given up hope nor spent much time standing in line for a full-time employment application. Rather, they have patched together a number of part-time jobs. A little more than a decade ago, one of us was conducting a study of faculty members in the United States, while also doing quite a bit of teaching in several universities. One of the focal points of this study concerned faculty who were making a living teaching at several different universities and colleges within a specific urban setting.

In order to make a decent living, these men and women would have to teach 20 to 30 courses per year. And with all of this teaching, they would still not have any health benefits, retirement benefits (other than social security), and not much say over the course content they were teaching, let alone much say regarding the policies and procedures of the collegiate institutions in which they were teaching. In essence, urban areas throughout the United States had each created an “invisible university.” While each college and university within a specific city would pronounce something about their distinctive mission and educational philosophy, the fact was that more than 50% of their faculty members were part-time and teaching at each of these “distinctive” institutions. It’s hard to be distinctive when a majority of your faculty members are also teaching at other educational institutions. One of the faculty members who was interviewed suggested that he was a “migrant worker” who was moving from classroom (in college A) to classroom (in college B), “harvesting” the crop of students in each of these educational institutions.

Clearly, many of these faculty members in the invisible universities of America were living out a “patch-work” career. We find the same kind of career path among many other professionals who can’t obtain a full-time position with benefits and job security. Obviously, we also can point to the actual migrant workers and other men and women who are burdened with a life of part-time, piece-meal, and unpredictable employment opportunities. The part-time faculty members working in invisible universities exemplify the broadening reach of this migrant, patch-work model of employment. The expanding size of this organizational underground is populated by people at all levels of the socio-economic ladder and at all levels of education and career aspirations.