engleski

Contemporary challenges of coping with unemployment

The economic recession followed by increased unemployment rates recently registered in most European countries has decreased the quality of work life for many people. In the first instance, many have experienced work intensification, a higher level of job insecurity, and finally, job loss and unemployment. These pervasive stressors represent the nonpecuniary individual costs of working in a context of macroeconomic stagnation. In this respect, special demands are placed on workers in countries with high and stagnant unemployment rates, as is the case in Croatia. Accordingly, this lecture discusses and compares the findings of recent cross-sectional and longitudinal studies conducted in several countries with high unemployment rates and low work mobility. The results are organized along three topics that present the most pronounced challenges for workers and for psychologists working with the unemployed: (1) consequences of unemployment on individual health ; (2) problem and emotion focused strategies of coping with job loss ; and (3) human and social capital variables that serve as individual resources in the job search process. Special emphasis is placed on the individual costs of adaptive work behavior in the process of coercive work mobility between employment, unemployment and nonstandard work, phenomena specific for the social context presented above. The main conclusions are discussed in line with the meaning of work and the conservation of resources theory. The lecture concludes with guidelines for designing psychological interventions for three distinct groups of unemployed persons: currently displaced workers, long-term unemployed persons and young people entering job markets.

unemployment; economic recession; coping with job loss; human and social capital

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