An employment gap is a time, be it months or years, when the job seeker was unemployed. Usually, people decide to stay unemployed because they want to raise their children, travel, or go to school full time.
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, there has been an increase in employment gaps, mainly with women and mothers. One of the many reasons behind these are layoffs and the lack of options for childcare.
LinkedIn, an online platform that connects the world's workers, has announced new features that will allow its users to identify as stay-at-home parents or self-employed. It aims to explain employment gaps as working professionals go through an ever-changing work landscape caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Stay-at-home parents as a LinkedIn job title
It was just last week that LinkedIn announced their stay-at-home parents or self-employed option. This new feature allows LinkedIn users to add the title stay-at-home mom or stay-at-home dad for those stay-at-home parents to their profiles.
For the next few weeks, LinkedIn will also add the options "parental leave," "family care," and "sabbatical" to their growing list.
Career and employment gaps
The director of engineering at LinkedIn, Bef Aneyew, said that the reason behind these new features were their members, mainly women and mothers who have stopped working for the time being. These stay-at-home parents said they need more ways to reflect career and employment gaps on their profile because of parenting and other life responsibilities.
Because of these statements, they launched new job titles like "stay-at-home mom," "stay-at-home dad," and "stay-at-home parent" to allow full-time parents and caretakers to display their roles fully.
The coronavirus pandemic had a drastic effect on female workers. Recent data from the U.S. Department of Labor says that more than 2 million women have left the labor force in the previous year, partly caused by layoffs and lack of childcare options. Such employment gaps were caused mainly by the coronavirus pandemic.
The effect of the coronavirus pandemic
The coronavirus pandemic has hurt women's and men's works and employment gaps. But, there is a gap because of the gender division of economic activities. And as the coronavirus worsened, the impact on jobs for men increased. That is because they tend to work in places and jobs that are more dependent on international trade. What is more troubling is the coronavirus pandemic's impact on women taking part in the labor market.
As most people know, such a time of unemployment was "red flags" for recruiters and hiring managers scanning their applicants' CVs. But these days, because of the crisis that the world has faced, such a gap is no longer a signal for managers to label someone that they lack ambition.
Job loss during the pandemic
Based on NL Time, 4.5% of the workforce experienced job loss due to the coronavirus pandemic. And although employers are critical when it comes to hiring, they are still mindful of such a reality.
There are plenty of reasons that job seekers can say to explain such a gap in their career. To know more about strategies that you can employ to boost your chances of finding your next job, click here.
