Mar 27 2009
The Psychological Impact of Involuntary Job loss
The untold story about involuntary job loss is that individuals take a tremendous psychological hit. The USATODAY link, though somewhat dated at this point, begins to go into greater detail. The work of the Gallup-Healthways index (http://www.well-beingindex.com/) as well as the Usatoday story (http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-03-11-stress-poll_N.htm) presents data that supports the precipitous decline of the psychological health of those who are impacted by job loss.
With massive unemployment (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm) one can only image the psychological disruption that is taking place in the lives of those who have been involuntarily terminated. What most of us see are the individual stories of those who are struggling to make-ends-meet financially. What is often not seen and even less understood is how forced unemployment undermines psychological health.
The work of Janoff-Bulman (1992) on shattered assumptions helps us to understand just how psychological disruption takes place when one is confronted with, for example, unexpected unemployment, that leaves a person feeling victimized and vulnerable.
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