In despair. Husband is taking ages to find a role

I’ve been working FT since 2002 and have been made redundant twice throughout my career, in both cases due to centralisation / geographic relocation of my role.

First redundancy was January 2019 and I was headhunted and started my new role by mid April that year. The second time was in April 2023. I applied for a few roles but have quite a niche/specialist job and am fairly senior so the right roles aren’t widely available/generally easy to come by.

Of those 6 applications, I progressed to final interview stage in 4 and was offered jobs from 2: a permanent job at one place that I rejected having seen enough during interviews to know the company wasn’t a good fit, and a 12-month FTC role that I accepted, with the intention of avoiding both boredom and any meaningful gap on my CV.

I started that role mid July 2023 and 3 months later was offered the position on a permanent basis, fully contractually home based, with additional benefits and retaining the same salary as the temp role (objectively an uplift of £10-15k vs the median market rate for a similar role). I’m still there nearly 3 years later - it’s not perfect, but it pays the bills and whilst I’ve been approached about a number of different possible roles elsewhere during that time, none of them have ever quite been enough of a fit to push me in to moving. I’ve also seen a noticeable drop off in the number and quality of suitable roles being advertised, actively recruited for, and ultimately filled, since I was last looking - the job market is certainly becoming much more difficult for applicants.

My advice would be to encourage your DH to actively consider contractor/ FTC roles as well as the obvious permanent ones. I also don’t buy his excuse about being too busy job searching to help with household tasks! I wasn’t spending 8 hours a day job hunting when I was unemployed as the nature of my role meant I’m unlikely to find a job on Indeed.com vs a headhunter or professional contact/recommendation on LinkedIn or directly to the company. Even if your husband isn’t in a specialist role, he absolutely can, and should, be picking up additional responsibilities around the house so as to support you in maximising your earning potential during this period.

Who needs enemies with friends like you eh? Poor bloke

I dont think you need to panic this much. Firstly, the math ain't mathing. You said you salary 'just covers the mortgage' and that his redundancy would only last a couple of months. Then you say the new mortgage is 2k and you take home 4k. That leaves you 2k for bills and a chunk towards your living expenses. You'll need to dip into your husband's 11k, but this should be lasting far longer than 2 months if youre cutting spends where you can. I.e. nursery costs.

I don’t think you like your husband as much as you claim to

The one to check is contribution based JSA (New Style Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA)) as it doesn't depend on savings.

Jfc
he wouldn’t relocate to Asia and that somehow makes him the arse!

How much savings do you have to fall back on ?

Just thinking about what I wrote earlier, I can't help wondering whether being the SAHP when he clearly doesnt want to will see an increase in effort in finding a new job. Right now, lets face it, he doesnt have much of a pressing need. You with your job and savings etc he can coast financially for a bit and the kids are in nursery and you are covering the house.

Having to actually pull his weight with the kids and the house may mean that suddenly he finds the time and inclination to work a damned sight harder to get employment.

Useless because he's been made fucking redundant?!

But not cheaper…

The job market is awful these days. Recruiters will always show interest at first and this tends to drop off or go stale after a while. My DP was made redundant early 2025 and he has only just been in a new role for just over a month. I work in HR and deal with a lot of recruitment so completely agree with PPs who say every application needs to be tailored to the role and company specifically with snappy opening lines to keep hiring managers interested. I recently had nearly 300 applications for an entry level admin role, and over 150 for a COO.
it’s also really disheartening for the person applying getting zero responses or rejections!

My husband was made redundant about the same time ago. Since then, we have found out about a number of friends of a similar age who have also been made redundant.

I understand that it just a really bad environment out there - lots of middle management people being made redundant, lots of companies relocating work to other countries and some suggestion that AI is reducing the need for so many bodies (which I don't really understand the reasons for). This means that there are too many people chasing too few jobs.

DH has been almost worryingly pro-active about applying for jobs - He started within days of being given his notice of risk of redundancy and I worry a bit that he has driven his attention into this at the detriment of not spending time processing what has happened to him and considering what he would like to do next.

He has applied for over 100 roles in his field (including also recently expanding this to contracting). He has made contact with recruiters.

If your DH has had lots of chats, he's doing better than mine. He has had a few chats out of all these applications and nothing progressing to interview.

From our experience, I can see my DH trying and trying to the point of almost destroying himself, and he hasn't got anything, so I don't think that the lack of a job materialising is necessarily a failure of yours.

It has been pretty soul-destroying for him. He is the wrong side of 50 and has been with the same organisation for over 20 years. When he previously applied for jobs, the climate was so very different - recruiters presenting him with opportunities until they were coming out of his ears. Things really don't seem to be working the same way nowadays. Possibly he hasn't found the right people, but all the recruiters seem to be targetting people below his level. Everyone says to leverage your network, but it's difficult when your network is largely in the place you were made redundant from.

It's very hard as there's just so much silence. In my field, jobs are advertised with a firm closing date, so you know that if you haven't heard anything a couple of weeks after that, you've not been shortlisted. The adverts in DH's field just seem to be open-ended, so he doesn't know if he's being considered or whether they just haven't got in touch to say it's a no.

This all sounds terribly pessimistic, but I do have something good to share. He has been contacted about the very first job he applied for 2 months ago today. So it does seem that some firms are taking this long to make decisions i.e. a very long silence may not necessarily mean no.

Good luck to your DH

It took me 6 months to find a new job when I was ready for a move and I am employed in a decent position in a top tier household name org. You need to expect this to take at least 6 months and more likely a year. To tide you over you can take a mortgage pause from your lender, maybe reduce childcare and he will need to take whatever work he can find around the outsides of applications to get some money coming in. Sounds like he is sticking his head in the sand. Sorry op this would stress me out too, hugs xx

I think you're just going to have to keep on him about it, OP. Tell him that you are terrified and ask him every day what jobs he's applied for.

When people are job-seeking, I have NO idea why they don't take any old job asap while they look, even if NMW, to help keep the wolves from the door. I know two people who lost their well-paid jobs and were out of work for many, many months (one still is) but won't do something they deem beneath them. But if they worked 35 hours a week at Tesco or Sainsbury's, they'd earn 1,850pm approx. before tax, and there are opportunities for overtime. And discounts on food etc., so it helps the household even more. I know it wouldn't replace 80k, but it would help the savings go down slower. The relative who is out of work has been so now for about 18 months and I'm told they've got rather used to not working, which is a massive annoyance for the household because their salary was three-quarters of the household income. They will be OK with the other spouse's salary, but only just, and it means their retirement plans will be really affected.

So, you are not alone, OP, with a spouse who is reluctant to get another job. I wouldn't normally advocate nagging anybody, but I think this is one scenario where you just have to keep on at them.

Can you increase your hours at work? Maybe do compressed hours and DH does the nursery runs on the days you work so you can do two long days? At least as a starting point

You can't control him (sadly) but you can look at what you can do to help the situation

Anything you can sell?

Do you have expensive cars etc? If so look at downgrading them

Had a job in Asia but would not relocate...?

My dad and a friend at boarding school all relocated. Asia etc.

He sounds useless anyway.

Sorry you are going through this OP.

Life as a solo mum is easier than an adult around bringing you down,

The job market is brutal at the moment. I would definitely be looking at whatever belt-tightening measures you can both do to gain yourselves some time - talk to your mortgage provider about a holiday or swapping to interest only (or both) , cancel subscriptions, go down to one car, whatever you can do to reduce expenditure and prepare yourselves for a longer time on one income.

Also see at your own work if you can get a pay rise or put in for promotion or get more hours if applicable.

In my area of work I’ve known multiple people who have taken 18 months + to get a new job and have done things like drive an Uber to bring cash in in the meantime.

He likely needs to pull on his network rather than rely on applying blind.

Bear in mind he might not be telling you everything he’s going, especiallly if he feels you will be critical rather than supportive. However if he’s clearly out boozing all the time rather than applying you’ll need to talk about that!

Applying for jobs isn't a full time job. He can parent while you work until he finds a job, what utter nonsense that he can't. Useless article

I can hear you are upset OP but you are going to need to made some radical changes, likely starting with you going back to work full time. Job applications all need to be tailored specifically to the role so he can’t just have one cv and send that off. So it is time consuming (and soul destroying) However I think you are making a mistake by assuming he can’t do housework, childcare etc whilst job hunting. People who have demands on their time tend to be much more efficient. It’s easy to fill a full day faffing about if you don’t have other time limited stuff to do. To be fair to him this must be an awful shock and you do seem to be implying it’s his fault.

Have you just reread the last sentence you typed

He is unlikely to even get interviews for min wage jobs. Hundreds of people are applying for every unskilled job. Why would they take on someone with his experience knowing he would leave as soon as something better comes along.

OP needs to ask her employer if she can go back full time, thats the easiest solution & he will need to look after the children

He needs to pull his finger out, both at home and on the job-hunting front, that's clear.
But if you're interested in happy outcomes, well my own redundancy (25 years ago!!) turned out to be a blessing in disguise, and left me open to pursue a life-changing opportunity for me, my kids and my (now ex) partner.

I'm sorry but he needs a reality check. If he's not working he is the childcare. As that's how you work and not paying out for care. It doesn't take that much time effort to job search. This could be done evenings after children are in bed. Interviews arranged then childcare booked to allow for this. He needs to start pulling his weight if he's not working....it sounds like he's a massive cock-womble. You need to put your foot down and tell him to pull his weight while hes unemployed.

Conversations around expectations and set times for job hunting need to be had, he sounds like he's manipulating 'chats' / job searching to avoid any kind of household responsibility including helping with DC.

Sorry, but this made me so angry for you 🤬