Year: 2008
Type: dissertation
Abstract: During a ‘learning goal orientation’ training course for unemployed people, one of the participants, a woman \nin her forties, had a lot of resistance to participate in the course. I persuaded her to stay and assured her that all \nshe had to do was sit down and watch. She persevered in her idea that this was a waste of time and even tried \nto convince me that I was also wasting my time. Two weeks after the training course, I called her for a follow-up \ninterview to measure her job-search intentions and behavior. Her first response was: “I have to apologize for my \nbehavior. After the training course I passed a temporary agency for elderly people and remembered what you \nhad said about trying different strategies. And guess what, I now have a job and not just any job but exactly \nthe job that I have wanted for so long”. \nThis anecdote illustrates the potential impact that employment counseling and training courses can \nhave on individuals who have lost their job. Losing one’s job is a life event with far reaching economic, \npsychological, and physical consequences (McKee-Ryan, Song, Wanberg, & Kinicki, 2005; Paul & Moser, \n2009) and is considered to be one of the top 10 traumatic life experiences (Spera, Buhrfeind, & Pennebaker, \n1994). Besides these consequences, unemployment also deprives a person of the additional gains from \nbeing employed, such as time structure, personal identity, interpersonal contact, and activity (Jahoda, \n1982; Warr, 1987). Furthermore, the negative consequences of being unemployed tend to increase with \nincreasing duration of unemployment (Rowley & Feather, 1987). \nUnemployment affects a substantial number of people in present day economies. For example, in the \nfirst three months of 2012, 11% of the labor force in Europe and 8.2% of the labor force in the United \nStates were unemployed (Eurostat, 2012; U.S. Department of Labor, 2012). Approximately half of these \nindividuals were long-term unemployed (i.e., more than six months) at that time. These numbers equal \nthe numbers of the 1980s recession.
Author: Gera Noordzij
Language: English
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1725899004