This article analyses how long-term unemployed persons experience time during their unemployment trajectories. This article uses a combination of interviewing and participant drawings to study the experience of time passing during the unemployment trajectory. We focus on the experience of wait time and find that the wait experience varies with control: some clients experience temporal agency and others a loss of control over time. When the wait time is characterised by uncertainty and a loss of control over time, it reinforces an experience of stagnation in the unemployment trajectory and a feeling of being a temporal outsider, living a life on hold, in comparison to societal norms of a working life. For these clients, wait time adds to the burden of unemployment. For clients experiencing temporal agency, wait time is experienced as meaningful, even useful. These clients experience control over the wait time or that the wait time has a fortunate timing in relation to other things happening in the clients’ lives. Based on the analysis, temporal control is decisive for the long-term unemployed, and therefore, a focus on time is crucial both in research on social and employment services for vulnerable clients and in the practice field.

本文分析了长期失业者在失业轨迹中的经历时间。本文结合面试和参与者绘画来研究失业轨迹中时间流逝的经历。我们专注于等待时间的体验，发现等待体验随控制而变化：一些客户体验临时代理，而另一些则随着时间的流逝失去控制。当等待时间的特点是不确定性和对时间的失去控制时，与工作生活的社会规范相比，等待时间会加剧失业轨迹的停滞体验和被暂时性局外人的感觉，生活被搁置。对于这些客户，等待时间增加了失业负担。对于经历临时代理的客户而言，等待时间是有意义的，甚至有用。这些客户体验了对等待时间的控制，或者等待时间相对于客户生活中发生的其他事情而言具有幸运的时机。根据分析，时间控制对于长期失业至关重要，因此，对时间的关注对于研究弱势客户的社会和就业服务以及在实践领域都至关重要。