SURVIVAL Part 1: The "New" Job Loss

by Jim Davis (Print complete Job Loss Survival Guide)

In the past, job loss usually meant that one of several fairly well understood things had happened. One was simply that a person was not doing the job adequately and was fired. Another possible reason was that the company didn't have enough work for its employees, so they got “laid off,” sometimes only temporarily. And another fairly common reason was that the company had gone out of business.

Several years ago, a new type of job loss came on the scene. Many businesses “down-sized” in an attempt to become more efficient, cut expenses, or in some cases to simply make more short-term profits. Employees were caught in a cultural upheaval. “Job security” was a thing of the past. People entering the job market learned to expect several career changes, not necessarily of their choosing, during their work lives.

Lately, that “new” job loss has become even more difficult to deal with. It has kept most of its original characteristics, but it also heaps on some of the worst of the job loss of the “old days” - most notably from businesses that are in trouble or even dying due to the changing economy.

When I first came into personal contact with this new kind of job loss back in 1991, I had no idea what havoc it can wreak in a person's life. I was also totally unprepared for the way the “system” operated. People who had in many cases literally dedicated their working lives to the company were unceremoniously told that they were no longer needed. In addition to being tersely notified that their jobs had ended, they were often even escorted from the building where they had worked, as if they had committed a crime. After this type of treatment, even the fact that many companies had set up job placement and retraining programs offered little consolation.

This “newest” job loss does seem to have a more compassionate aspect to it, from what I understand. Companies seem to be doing all they can to cushion the blow, in most cases. It's still devastating, though.

My experience during the early ’90s was my first exposure to job-loss grief, and I didn't even recognize it as grief. In fact, it was over three years later that I began to really understand it. By then I had been “voluntarily down-sized” into an early retirement, and I was studying grief as I worked on a master’s degree in counseling. I remembered that someone in one of the TVA job retraining activities had once mentioned that job loss was similar to a death, but no one apparently recognized that a grief process actually accompanies job loss. Most of the training primarily involved learning how to find another job or gaining new work skills.

Even today most people have little understanding of the job-loss grief process and how it can help them successfully survive job loss. I have tried in the following segments to help provide that understanding, as well as some basic suggestions for coping with your own grief or helping others to cope with theirs. I have also included some ideas for developing "survival skills" to use not only in the search for a new job, but also to help enhance your life in general.

I hope you find this Job Loss Survival Guide helpful, whether you have lost your job, are trying to help someone who has lost theirs, or are just trying to prepare for the future. If you have questions or comments, or if you feel I can be of help in any other way, please email me.

End of Part 1