From reading several threads, newspaper articles etc there seems to be a lot of confusion about what unemployed people are like so I thought I would help people.
The literacy levels of the unemployed ranges from completely illiterate to those with English degrees and everything in between.
Their level of education ranges from zero qualifications to post graduate degrees.
Their level of spoken English ranges from very poor to highly articulate often with fluency in other languages also.
Yes some of them smoke but guess what even more don't.
Some of them drink alcohol and surprise surprise some don't.
A few have no intention of applying for jobs (the minority) and for the rest they can apply for up to several a day.
Some have never worked, the majority have worked at sometime some for more than 40 years before redundancy.
Just like the employed are not a homogeneous group neither are the unemployed, in fact the only thing you can guarantee they have in common is their current state of unemployment.
HTH