A good friend of mine just sent me an e-mail letting me know that he was recently laid off.  This just a few months after the birth of his second child.  

With job losses mounting and unemployment approaching a whopping ten percent nationwide, this is a very scary scenario for most middle-class workers.  Even traditionally safe jobs like teaching in a public school system is no longer as secure as we thought.

If you are one of the unlucky souls hit by an unexpected bout of unemployment, financial website Bankrate.com has a seven step plan for the newly unemployed that you need to see right away.  You’ll want to read this article in full, but here’s a quick summary of the steps:

Get to the unemployment office fast

Bring your family in on the plan

Manage your mortgage payments

Put the credit cards away

Know your health insurance options

Don’t touch your retirement fund

Commit to saving money

With so much uncertainty in the job market I would recommend that everyone have a pre-layoff action plan as well.  Knowing that your ship isn’t coming in (an very well might sink) is good incentive to make sure your life preserver is plump and your lifeboat is seaworthy.  Here are a few things to consider doing right now, and at all times:

1. Always have an updated copy of your resume in Microsoft Word format
2. Make sure your social network accounts reflect you in a positive light, e.g. no heavy drinking/drug references, sexist or racist humor, questionable photos, etc.  If your friends have posted such, ask them to take the items down and tell them why it’s important.
3. If you haven’t already, join LinkedIn.  Amass a good collection of personal and professional contacts and have positive references in abundance.  This is one of the top sites that prospective employers troll to learn about your work history and relationships.
4. Maintain connections with past employers.  You’ll need them for references, and they may be interested in hiring you back.  Even if you didn’t leave on great terms, you may be able to rebuild some goodwill with them as time goes on.
5. Keep up your side projects.  Debtbeat rule #1 is to make more money than you did when your debt got out of hand and this site has a host of ways to earn extra cash outside of your main job.

Working hard and making yourself indispensable on the job is a good strategy and only fair to your employer if you make an honest wage.  But if you’re cast overboard, it’s better to know you have a life preserver and a general idea where the next closest ship is.