Coping with Job Loss and Reemployment: A Two-Wave Study

In a double-bind: Time-space distanciation, socioeconomic status, and coping with financial stress in the United States

Psychological research has shown that lower socioeconomic status (SES) individuals experience higher levels of stress and tend to cope in more present-oriented ways. While some research in the field has sought to, for instance, increase future-oriented ways of being among lower SES individuals, we argue that such approaches may come at significant cost. We consider the construct of time-space distanciation (TSD) - the normative way in which time and space are abstracted from one another at cultural and individual levels - as a way to complicate psychological research on social class, stress, and coping. Across four studies, we present research on US geographical regions (Studies 1-2) and US participants (Studies 3-4) suggesting that adopting normative high-TSD orientations represents a double-bind for lower SES individuals: it allows one to enact more proactive coping strategies in the face of financial stressors such as debt (Studies 1-3), but it is also a source of disproportionate stress itself (Study 4), given the burdens faced by lower SES individuals trying to navigate time and space in culturally hegemonic ways in spite of precarity and material insecurity. We discuss how TSD offers a means of situating psychological research into precarity within the broader structural context of flexible capitalism.

The mediating role of controllability appraisals and coping strategies on adaptive functioning after job loss: a path model

Job loss is a stressful event that increases the risk of experiencing depression and anxiety, especially during the initial months of unemployment. This study examined differences in psychological symptoms and resilient functioning accounted by employment status. The results pointed out that recently unemployed compared to currently employed individuals had lower levels of perceived controllability and resilience as well as higher levels of depression and anxiety. Path analyses showed that lower controllability appraisals at wave 1 of recently unemployed compared to employed individuals, in turn, predicted a lower use of active coping and reappraisal at wave 2, with the latter further accounting for lower levels in resilience. Higher use of distraction further mediated the relation between employment status and higher levels of depression and anxiety symptoms. Our findings demonstrate the importance of controllability appraisals and coping strategies used to promote adaptive psychological functioning following job loss.

Job loss-related complicated grief symptoms: A cognitive-behavioral framework

In a significant minority of people, involuntarily job loss can result in symptoms of job loss-related complicated grief (JLCG). The present cognitive-behavioral framework is introduced to explain the underlying processes that may lead to the development and maintenance of JLCG symptoms. Three core processes play a central role, namely (1) negative cognitions related to the job loss and misinterpretation of one's grief reactions; (2) anxious and depressive avoidance strategies to cope with the job loss and its consequences; and (3) insufficient integration of the job loss into the autobiographical memory. These core processes are assumed to interact and reinforce each other, leading to JLCG symptoms. The three core processes can be influenced by certain risk factors, including circumstances surrounding the loss, personality traits, and characteristics of the social environment. JLCG symptoms can lead to additional psychological and practical problems, such as anxiety and depressive symptoms, lower employability, and reduced likelihood of re-employment. This paper explains and illustrates the three core processes with vignettes. Implications of the model for preventive measures and psychological interventions are introduced. It concludes with suggestions for future research on JLCG symptoms.

The Mental Health of Employees with Job Loss and Income Loss during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Mediating Role of Perceived Financial Stress

The COVID-19 outbreak, which was followed by home confinement, is expected to have had profound negative impact on the mental health of people. Associated factors, such as losing jobs and income, can be expected to lead to an increased risk of suffering from psychopathological problems. Therefore, this study was aimed at researching the associations of job and income loss with mental health, as well as the possible mediating role of perceived financial stress during the COVID-19 outbreak. The sample included 2381 Spanish workers who were interviewed right after the first COVID-19 lockdown. Measures were taken for generalized anxiety disorder, panic attacks, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, suicidal thoughts and behaviors, working conditions, sociodemographic variables, and perceived financial stress. Logistic regression models were calculated with psychological variables as outcomes, and with job loss and income loss as predictors. Mediation analyses were performed by adding the financial threat as a mediator. Nineteen point six percent and 33.9% of participants reported having lost their jobs and incomes due to the pandemic, respectively. Only income loss was related to a higher risk of suffering from depression and panic attacks. When adding financial stress as a mediator, the indirect effects of job and income loss on the mental health measures were found to be significant, therefore indicating mediation. These findings pinpoint the vulnerability of this population, and highlight the need for interventional and preventive programs targeting mental health in economic crisis scenarios, such as the current one. They also highlight the importance of implementing social and income policies during the COVID-19 pandemic to prevent mental health problems.

Enhancing Employee Engagement via Leaders' Motivational Language in times of crisis: Perspectives from the COVID-19 outbreak

By bridging theoretical perspectives from diverse disciplines including public relations, organizational communication, psychology, and management, this study advances a sequential mediation process model that links leaders' motivational communication-specifically, direction-giving, empathetic, and meaning-making language-to employees' organizational engagement during times of crisis. The model incorporates employees' psychological needs satisfaction and their subsequent crisis coping strategies so as to explain the process that underlies the effects of leader communication on employee engagement. We tested the model in a unique yet underexplored crisis context: organizational crises triggered by the global pandemic of COVID-19. The results of an online survey of 490 full-time U.S. employees provide strong support to the model's predictions. Our research extends internal crisis communication scholarship in public relations by addressing what types of leader communication strategies as well as how these strategies contribute to employee engagement in a holistic fashion. It also advances theoretical development of the motivational language theory, self-determination theory, transactional model of stress and coping, and organizational engagement-the four theoretical bases of our study-in the context of organizational crises. Lastly, the study results provide timely practical insights on effective internal crisis communication.

How Does Green Training Boost Employee Green Creativity? A Sequential Mediation Process Model

Despite accumulated evidence from previous studies that green creativity is highly emphasized in various industries, limited research has been conducted in the context of public sectors. Drawing on the dynamic componential model of creativity and innovation in organizations, this paper aims to propose and sequentially test the relationship between green training and employees’ green creativity through green values and green intrinsic motivation. Based on the data collected in Chinese public sectors (N = 464) at two different time points, the results indicate that green training is positively related to green creativity. Moreover, this relationship is sequentially mediated by green values and green intrinsic motivation. The results in our study advance the emergent literature on green human resource management in the public sector for the practical applications of training and creativity in terms of green management.

What helps the unemployed to stay healthy? A qualitative study of coping with the negative effects of job loss

Background: A variety of empirical studies have shown the negative effects of unemployment on health. A research gap exists regarding salutogenic factors and successful coping strategies to master involuntary job loss and unemployment with the least damage to health. Hence, this study aims at generating a deeper understanding of coping with unemployment and maintaining health.

Design and methods: We conducted problem-centered guideline interviews with 21 unemployed people. For the analysis of the interviews, we followed the qualitative content analysis.

Results: The study identified that five themes were particularly relevant in coping with unemployment: i) the financial situation, ii) social support and psychosocial strains due family obligations, iii) health problems, iv) time structure, and v) coping strategies. The respondents expressed their financial situation as a major strain in unemployment. They emphasized the importance of social support by their families, but reported also stressful psychosocial demands due to their family members. Further, our respondents mentioned their health problems as a barrier to reintegration into the labour market. In connection with social role demands, a rudimentary time structure was reported by the participants. The common reported coping strategy in unemployment is seeking social support.

Conclusions: In summary, our results show – besides health problems and a deteriorated financial situation in unemployment – the great importance of social support and time structure for maintaining mental health in unemployment. Consequently, health promotion approaches for the unemployed should especially target social support and time structure.

Transitional Employment and Psychological Distress: a Longitudinal Study

Although it has been established that employed status is generally associated with better mental health than unemployed status, the psychological mechanisms that underlie the longitudinal association between employment status and psychological distress remain to be understood. Initial mental health, lower coping skills and social support, and more stressful events could potentially preselect certain vulnerable individuals to be at higher risk for unemployment or employment instability. The aim of this study was to examine the longitudinal association between employment status (including transitional employment status) and psychological distress, controlling for the effect of initial psychological distress, coping skills, social support, and stressful events. In 2009, residents from the epidemiological catchment area of south-west Montréal responded to a randomized household survey for adults. Follow-up surveys were conducted in 2011 and 2013 (n = 1168). Psychological distress was measured using the K-10 scale. Employment status was not significantly associated with psychological distress over time, however there were significant differences between the groups with the continually employed reporting the lowest average levels of psychological distress over time. Controlling for coping skills, social support, stressful events and initial psychological distress changed the strengths of the association between transitional employment status and psychological distress at follow-up. A significant longitudinal association between continual unemployment and psychological distress was observed. Initial psychological distress was significantly associated with becoming unemployed. Results suggest initial psychological distress as a risk factor for becoming unemployed and that the negative psychological implications of employment transitions can be significantly reduced when conditions for coping are optimized.

How Do Career Aspirations Benefit Organizations? The Mediating Roles of the Proactive and Relational Aspects of Contemporary Work

This paper examines how employees’ career aspirations benefit organizations, i.e., contribute to strengthening organizational capabilities and connections, by means of two aspects of contemporary work: proactive and relational. Data were collected from alumni of a public university in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in two waves with a 1-year time lag. The results showed that employees with career aspirations strengthen: (a) organizational capabilities; and (b) organizational connections through their instrumental and psychosocial relationships. Interestingly, although employees’ career aspirations were positively associated with taking charge, we did not find that taking charge mediates the relationship between career aspirations and employees’ individual contributions to organizational capabilities. This study is the first to examine how individual career aspirations benefit organizations, and it discusses the results in light of their novel contributions to theory and practice.

Should we talk? Co-rumination and conversation avoidance in job search

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to adopt an approach/avoidance coping framework to examine the relationships of job search co-rumination (i.e. engaging in repeated and excessive conversations with a friend about job search problems) and job search talk avoidance (i.e. persistently seeking to escape conversations about the job search) on job search intensity and job search procrastination.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors surveyed 196 new labor market entrants (i.e. graduating students) at two points in time during their last semester in college.

Findings

The authors found that job search co-rumination is positively related to job search intensity, while job search talk avoidance is positively related to job search procrastination. Interestingly, though, the expected negative relationships between job search co-rumination and job search procrastination and between job search talk avoidance and job search intensity were not significant.

Practical implications

This study has implications for both job seekers and career counselors. For job seekers, understanding how their communication patterns influence their behaviors (and ultimately their success) can help them to see the benefits of a balanced approach to sharing about their job search. Furthermore, career centers could organize either job search mentoring or peer group programs to help job seekers navigate the intricacies of the job search process.

Originality/value

This study contributes to understanding whether and how talking (or not) with others (i.e. friends and relatives) about one’s job search influences one’s job search behaviors, such as intensity and procrastination.

Core Self-Evaluations and Individual Strategies of Coping with Unemployment among Displaced Spanish Workers

Unemployment has negative but also positive effects on mental health and general well-being depending on which coping strategies the individual use. Our aim was to determine the contribution of core self-evaluations in explaining the coping strategies of job search and job devaluation, as well as to test the potential moderation effect of job search and mediation effect of job devaluation on the relationship between self core-evaluations and both positive and negative experience of unemployment. One hundred seventy-eight individuals who lost their jobs involuntarily for a longer period than one month completed a questionnaire while attending to employment office. Results show that there is a significant relation between core-self evaluations and job devaluation (.37**). Furthermore, core-self evaluations were positively related to positive experience of unemployment (r = .31; p < .01) and negatively related to negative experience of unemployment (r = .60; p < .01). Moreover, self-core evaluations predicted both coping with unemployment strategies (job devaluation; β = .26; p < .01 and job search β = .19; p < .05). However, job search did not moderate the relationship between core self-evaluations and experience of unemployment. But, individuals with a longer duration of the current period of unemployment and higher core self-evaluations had a more positive experience of unemployment, and job devaluation partially mediated this relation (SE = .002; p = .038). These results imply that programs interventions should include the improvement of core self-evaluations and the positive experience of unemployed people.

Employment outcome and predictors of competitive employment at 2-year follow-up of a vocational rehabilitation programme for individuals with schizophrenia in a high-income welfare society

BACKGROUND

Employment is an important part of recovery for individuals with schizophrenia. The employment rate for this group is as low as 10% in Norway, and major system related barriers to employment are evident.

AIMS

This study reports the competitive employment outcome at 2-year follow-up of a vocational rehabilitation study augmented with cognitive remediation (CR) or elements from cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) for individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. It also investigates if global functioning, self-esteem, and depression at baseline predicts employment outcome, and if change in these variables during the intervention period is associated with employment outcome.

METHOD

One hundred and forty-eight participants with schizophrenia spectrum disorders in six Norwegian counties received 10 months vocational rehabilitation augmented with either CBT (n = 84) or CR (n = 64). Both competitive and sheltered workplaces were used. Participants were assessed at baseline, at the end of the intervention period, and at 2-year follow-up.

RESULTS

At 2-year follow-up, 21.2% had obtained competitive employment. A further 25.3% had work placements in competitive workplaces. Significant improvements were found in global functioning, self-esteem, and depression during the intervention period, but no significant differences between the two intervention groups. High baseline global functioning and self-esteem, as well as positive change in these variables during the intervention period, were significantly associated with higher competitive employment outcome at 2-year follow-up.

CONCLUSION

The results add to existing evidence that competitive employment is attainable for individuals with schizophrenia. High global functioning and self-esteem were strongly associated with competitive employment outcome.