The drastic increase among the U.S. unemployment rate led to increased trauma among those who lost their job as a result of the global COVID‐19 pandemic. Combined with racial and ethnic disparities, the culmination of these traumatic stressors creates unique challenges and barriers for individuals from historically marginalized populations and low socioeconomic backgrounds. In this article, we explore how trauma‐informed care can be integrated into career development practices for career practitioners. We provide a conceptualization of trauma‐informed practice, interventions, and practical implications for career practitioners to incorporate in their work with historically marginalized clients.

This qualitative study examines the experiences of COVID‐19 job loss by individuals from minimal‐resource communities. Six participants were interviewed regarding their experience with becoming unemployed during the global pandemic. In general, participants described experiences that aligned with the core tenets of Gowan and Gatewood's (1997) model of response to job loss, as well as additional subthemes, including (a) internal support, (b) external support/resources, (c) survival, (d) mind‐set, (e) emotion regulation, and (f) mental health effects. Implications are provided to career practitioners with consideration of these experiences when working with unemployed individuals who have limited resources.

The school counseling profession has an ethical responsibility to provide and advocate for individual students’ career planning and development, while expanding school counselors’ own multicultural and social justice advocacy to become effective culturally competent professionals. Additional literature is needed to identify how school counselors can adapt their career counseling approaches to fit the unique challenges and barriers of historically marginalized students both during and after the global COVID-19 pandemic. We describe how school counselors can use intersectionality theory as a framework for career development with marginalized populations in response to COVID-19 and its impact on the economic decline.

No abstract