Friday, January 19, 2007
Redundancies boost mental health problems for those who keep their jobs
Enforced redundancies, also known as “downsizing,” boost mental health problems among those who keep their jobs, reveals research in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. The researchers base their findings on prescriptions among more than 26,500 municipal workers in Finland, after a period of redundancies, sparked by a national recession. Men who lost or left their jobs were most at risk of a prescription for a psychotropic drug. They were 64% more likely to be given such a prescription than those working in organisations where no job losses had occurred. But men who kept their jobs in downsized organisations were almost 50% more likely to be given a prescription for one of these drugs than were those whose organisations were not downsized.
Health at Work • Organizational Climate • Pharmaceuticals • Productivity/Performance • (2) Comments • Permalink