First of a two-part report on a 1982 study by the staff of the Education and Work program at Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (NWREL), this issue presents the preliminary findings from questionnaires (and telephone surveys) of 30 unemployed men and women. In order to determine how unemployment affects people, NWREL's study identified and explored the following four categories of problems: (1) economic effects; (2) psychological effects; (3) family/sociological effects; and (4) barriers to further education, retraining, and relocation to find employment. Details on how the study was conducted and how the participants were selected are given. A profile of the unemployed in the Northwest is drawn from an analysis of the responses obtained in the four categories listed above. (EM)