Job insecurity: the psychological impact of unemployment

Job insecurity: the psychological impact of unemployment

With public works paralyzed, the construction sector suffers the blows of these measures like so many other sectors. The public sector deserves special mention, since the President’s objective is to shrink the State by half and to the more than 20,000 layoffs, 50,000 more are added, according to the announcements.

At first glance numbers that must fit into an Excel, pausing and stopping to think implies understanding that each figure is a life story with collateral effects. This brief overview is necessary to frame the problems and is the basis from which questions can be formulated from Psychology to enable lines of thought and action.

So: How does unemployment impact on a psychological level? Does it have the magnitude of a grieving process? And the witnesses of unemployment? Is there a risk of existential emptiness?

The impact that unemployment has on mental health is undeniable; it can be assured that it is a combination of social trauma that, according to the policies implemented, becomes a wound that hurts different groups at certain times.

Imagining the possibility of losing a source of income is an intimidation that stalks and pulverizes well-being and that has the characteristics of an individual but also shared grief.

Unemployment and lack of protection are the two sides of the coin, which, thrown into the air, operates as a social threat, for you, for me, for many and which imposes individual responses because collective actions are scarce.

From Psychology it is confirmed that apart from the fact that the purpose of a job is linked to a source of income and the possibility of livelihood, it is known that the development of a paid task provides social and psychological well-being. Work confers status, it forms routines and habits, it is a social and individual computer, to a large extent a job structures us and occupies an important part in our lives.

Unemployment is sometimes foreshadowed, “he sees it coming”in others the end is inexorable and comes like a slap in the face, “like a bucket of cold water” and the emotional, psychological consequences, the social repercussions of the situation of helplessness seem to explode and crumble life projects.

In this way, going through the loss of a job means facing a series of powerful repercussions as there is growing worry, tension, stress, anguish and depression usually appears among the most frequent consequences. Self-esteem is eroded, self-image collapses, identity is reconfigured based on a new role: that of the unemployed, with a lacerating symbolism and subjective burden.

Although we live in times of exacerbated individualism, “every man for himself” and in the speeches there is an abundance of stories in which the other seems dispensable, who today keeps his job, also ands “persecuted” by this “job insecurity.”

Studies reveal that the “survivors”, those who witness the unemployment of their colleagues, also show an alarming deterioration in their psychological well-being and a decrease in the exercise and defense of rights, since the telegram can be for anyone, that is, it works in a state of vulnerability and uncertainty.

According to Freud, work activity allows us to develop creativity, ambition, feelings of belonging, confers recognition and independence, but for the “father of Psychoanalysis”, unemployment also requires mourning; elaborate what we had and that is no longer there, or what is worse we will not possess again.

Whoever loses a job goes through different states and stages: there is guilt, hopelessness, absence of objectives, lack of plans and projects, apathy, anger, fury and even shame; omnipresent feelings and emotions that cloud the gaze, cloud the panorama and the horizon is perceived as irreversible.

The best youths They experience states of irritability, isolation, self-marginalization, psychosomatic disorders, falling into a paralyzing resignation. The Adults Instead, they oscillate, from initial disbelief they move to states of disorientation and fear of the future and although at first they experience the situation as a forced vacation or a time to dedicate themselves to pending issues, later physical and mental disorders appear.

The truth is that there are a series of steps that are not always overcome successively, but according to how long it takes to recover a job, the person goes from one seat to another; There are advances, setbacks, stagnation and falls.

Denial, a defense mechanism, is manifested through phrases such as “it can’t be” or “there must be a mistake.” Denying is a kind of truce between thoughts and reality that mitigates the first impact of the news. Then anger and anger appear, and when denial can no longer be sustained, there are feelings of rage and anger. This combo of emotions should be temporary, temporary and diminish when faced with the possibility of a new job or project, but when a promising future is not in sight, the feeling overwhelms and can trigger more complex mental health problems.

Losing a job, being unemployed, pierces every protective shell, generates a state of intense pain, difficult to cope with because emotional resources seem to dissipate along with “the coins” and the existential emptiness is as unbearable as seeing empty plates in a restaurant. table.

PhD in Psychology.

Source: Ambito

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