When Jeremy Spiegel was looking for work in 2009, it was clear why finding a job might be difficult: it was the depths of the Great Recession.

But when he lost his director role at a publishing company in 2024, there was no recession to blame. Spiegel, who’s in his 40s and lives in Massachusetts, has spent two years looking for work — despite having more than twenty years of experience.

“I’ve been told so many times a version of ‘It’s not you, it’s us’ that I am beginning to wonder if it is, in fact, me,” Spiegel said.

He said others have struggled to understand how someone with his background could be out of work for so long. Had he offended…