A Panel Study of Coping with Involuntary Job Loss

Abstract

We examined the role of the quality of reemployment in the process of coping with job loss using a panel design and a four‐month interval for 100 displaced workers. The dynamic process of coping with job loss changed between the anticipatory and outcome stages. The quality of reemployment played a key role, interacting with time in such a way that satisfactorily reemployed workers experienced reduced economic discrepancies and replenished coping resources. The dissatisfactorily reemployed and the unemployed continued to experience negative effects.