Credit crunch causes more stress to employees

BEIJING, March 11 (Chinese medianet) -- Employees who are under constant threat of losing their jobs suffer a greater decline in mental health as compared with those who are laid off, according to a Britian researcher.

Brendan Burchell, a Cambridge sociologist, at a conference at the University of Cambridge presented his analysis based on various surveys conducted across Europe. The data suggest that employed people who feel insecure in their job display similar levels of anxiety and depression as those who are unemployed. But whereas a newly jobless person's mental health may "bottom out" after about six months, and then even begin to improve, the mental state of people who are perpetually worried about losing their job "just continues to deteriorate, getting worse and worse."

Burchell argues that policymakers and employers should prepare for the fallout from the stress and anxiety that the existing workforce is currently suffering. "From a societal perspective, we can expect worse things to come," he says. "Presently we are going through a 'shock' period." But in a year, Burchell says, the people who have had to endure the ongoing threat of being fired -- and deal with the frustration of not being able to plan for their future or feel in control of their life -- may begin to suffer severe symptoms of anxiety and depression, such as insomnia, substance abuse and lethargy.

Burchell's conclusions, which he presented at the conference "Credit Crunch: Gender Equality in Hard Times," have been drawn from his study of about 300 British workers as well as various European workforce studies and the British Household Survey of approximately 5,000 people, which has charted the effects of social and economic change on mental health since 1991. Both Burchell's study and the British Household Survey used a 12-item questionnaire -- called the GHQ 12 -- that is designed to measure symptoms of stress and anxiety with questions like "Have you recently been thinking of yourself as a worthless person?" and "Have you recently been able to concentrate on whatever you are doing?"

(Agencies)