D.Litt. et Phil. / Job loss, unemployment and the associated deterioration of mental health are world wide concerns, however, for South Africa with a reported unemployment rate of 33.1% of the economically active population (South African Institute of Race Relations, 2001), it is a crisis of immense proportion. The reason frequently quoted for job loss in the formal sector is the fierce global competition which forces organisations to re-engineer, re-structure, reorganise, realign and inevitably, retrench employees. Reports of these events appear frequently in the media, however, do we understand the cost to the retrenched or unemployed worker in terms of human dignity, family cohesion, physical and mental health, and how this impacts on the social fabric of our society? The present study, using a qualitative methodology, derived from a constructivist paradigm, explores the inner life, the emic perceptions of a sample of eight unemployed participants. The study is strongly contextualised in that the participants are mid-career adults, previously employed in the formal (corporate) sector for more than twenty years of their working life and have been, subsequently, unemployed for six months or longer. The sample included adult men and one woman of Indian and White racial groups; they had all worked within the International Freight, Shipping and Logistics Industries. In addition, from this rich source of information counselling recommendations are offered. These guidelines may be useful (through a process of reconstruction with the client) to promote development, enhance coping skills, and improve the psychological and physical health of the unemployed person. The major theme that emerged from the interviews was of chronic stress and panic as the dislocated worker attempts to survive and cope with decreasing resources; the intrapersonal experiences related were of declining self-esteem, depression, anxiety and loss across all levels of life which are impacted by a major crisis such as unemployment. There is, in addition, the ‘devastating’ effect on family members. The coping behaviour, the resources available to the individual and the coping strategies utilised are discussed. The meaning of work and its contribution to mental health, self-actualisation and self-esteem is indeed defined when work which was taken for granted is no longer available. Job loss and retrenchment will continue in the formal sector as long as globalisation forces South African business organisations to compete in the international arena, however, “before we ruthlessly decide to retrench we must consider human suffering, the potential longer term consequences for this country’s people. We must start to put the human back in this global race” (Swanepoel, 1999, p. 11). Human service interventions based on sound theory and empirical findings are urgently required for the benefit of the unemployed and organisations are encouraged to carry out their social responsibility to their most valuable resource – their employees. Career counsellors have a role to play as change agents for equality, and career interventions such as outplacement programs or counselling services are necessary to address the mental health of the unemployed.

In Canada, as in most other industrial countries, concern is expressed over the existence of regional unemployment imbalances. If these imbalances were quickly alleviated, by action of labor and capital markets, there would be no regional problem. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Not only do regional unemployment differentials exist, but, more importantly, they tend to exist in spite of migration. This phenomenon suggests that, in the depressed region, there is some exogenous change, declining export demand, taking place concurrently with net out-migration. In addition, net out-migration itself reduces employment levels to some extent in the loser region. Changes in the demand for labor in a region are related to: changes in the export demand for its commodities which form the employment base; and changes in population size resulting from regional mobility. This relationship is essentially founded in a type of multiplier relation between the employment base of a region and its total employment. In this paper a model is developed from which the above theoretical relationship can be empirically investigated. Debate on policy measures for reducing regional unemployment, industrial location and mobility policies, have proceeded largely without knowledge of relative magnitudes. For a more objective approach we need estimates of regional multipliers. With this information we would be better equipped to judge the employment effects of out-migration and changes in export demand on depressed regions. The estimation technique used in this paper is cross-sectional multiple regression analysis. The counties of the Maritime Region serve as the population sample for the analysis. Data comes mainly from the Censuses of 1951 and 1961; both provide considerable information for such series as employment by industry and changes in population due to migration. It is concluded from the analysis carried out in this paper that emigration does indeed contain a de-stabilizing element for the loser region, in the form of income depression. We cannot expect out-migration of the unemployed to reduce unemployment on a one for one basis. Also, the regional employment multiplier may be larger in the case of declines in the employment base than for increases in it. The results suggest that mobility policy and industrial location policy may not reduce regional unemployment as quickly as we might suppose, a priori. / Arts, Faculty of / Vancouver School of Economics / Graduate

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Thesis (MEd)--University of South Australia, 1996

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1997. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [285]-308).

<p>Denna uppsats handlar om hur ungdomar med lågt deltagande på NUEVO upplever hinder och möjligheter i normaliseringsprocessen. NUEVO är en institution som hjälper arbetslösa ungdomar som länge har varit arbetslösa eller som har speciellt svårt att få eller lyckas behålla ett jobb. Min studie är inriktad på de ungdomar som inte deltar så aktivt på NUEVO och varför det är så. Varför normaliseringsprocessen och avstämplingen av dessa ungdomar hindras av en lång avvikarkarriär som dessa ungdomar har. Det jag fick fram är att stämplingen historia har en stor påverkan på ungdomarnas nuvarande situation. Det skapar en större problematik att hjälpa dessa ungdomar att integreras i samhället. Sen fick jag även fram ett antal hinder som även dessa sätter käppar i hjulet för att avstämpla och normalisera ungdomarna. Även att det finns många positiva aspekter på NUEVO som är en motpol till det negativa. NUEVO har kommit en bit på vägen för att möta dessa ungdomar men ännu är det en bit kvar att gå. Av de sex intervjuerna jag gjorde fick jag fram kategorier för hinder för avstämpling, men även kategorier till försök till avstämpling, där ungdomarna förut språkade att NUEVO gjorde väldigt bra jobb. Det är de här ungdomarna och deras upplevelse som är det central i denna undersökning.</p>

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