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Job loss is an involuntary disruptive life event with a far-reaching impact on workers' life trajectories. Its incidence among growing segments of the workforce, alongside the recent era of severe economic upheaval, has increased attention to the effects of job loss and unemployment. As a relatively exogenous labor market shock, the study of displacement enables robust estimates of associations between socioeconomic circumstances and life outcomes. Research suggests that displacement is associated with subsequent unemployment, long-term earnings losses, and lower job quality; declines in psychological and physical well-being; loss of psychosocial assets; social withdrawal; family disruption; and lower levels of children's attainment and well-being. Although reemployment mitigates some of the negative effects of job loss, it does not eliminate them. Contexts of widespread unemployment, although associated with larger economic losses, lessen the social-psychological impact of job loss. Future research should attend more fully to how the economic and social-psychological effects of displacement intersect and extend beyond displaced workers themselves.

We estimate that unemployment insurance (UI) extensions reduce reemployment wages using sharp age discontinuities in UI eligibility in Germany. We show this effect combines two key policy parameters: the effect ofUI on reservation wages and the effect of nonemployment durations on wage offers. Our framework implies if UI extensions do not affect wages conditional on duration, then reservation wages do not bind. We derive resulting instrumental variable estimates for the effect of nonemployment durations on wage offers and bounds for reservation wage effects. The effect of UI on wages we find arises mainly from substantial negative nonemployment duration effects.

Contrary to standard search models predictions, past studies have not found a positive effect of unemployment insurance (UI) on reemployment wages. We estimate a positive UI wage effect exploiting an age-based regression discontinuity design in Austria. A search model incorporating duration dependence predicts two countervailing forces: UI induces workers to seek higher-wage jobs, but reduces wages by lengthening unemployment. Matching-function heterogeneity plausibly generates a negative relationship between the UI unemployment-duration and wage effects, which holds empirically in our sample and across studies, reconciling disparate wage-effect estimates. Empirically, UI raises wages by improving reemployment firm quality and attenuating wage drops.

This study examines the sociodemographic divide in early labor market responses to the U.S. COVID-19 epidemic and associated policies, benchmarked against two previous recessions. Monthly Current Population Survey (CPS) data show greater declines in employment in April and May 2020 (relative to February) for Hispanic individuals, younger workers, and those with a high school diploma or some college. Between April and May, the demographic subgroups considered regained some employment. Reemployment in May was broadly proportional to the employment drop that occurred through April, except for Black individuals, who experienced a smaller rebound. Compared to the 2001 recession and the Great Recession, employment losses in the early COVID-19 recession were smaller for groups with low or high (vs. medium) education. We show that job loss was greater in occupations that require more interpersonal contact and that cannot be performed remotely, and that pre-COVID-19 sorting of workers into occupations and industries along demographic lines can explain a sizable portion of the demographic gaps in new unemployment. For example, while women suffered more job losses than men, their disproportionate pre-epidemic sorting into occupations compatible with remote work shielded them from even larger employment losses. However, substantial gaps in employment losses across groups cannot be explained by socioeconomic differences. We consider policy lessons and future research needs regarding the early labor market implications of the COVID-19 crisis.

This study examined the influence of psychological capital on job search among displaced employees. On the basis of a sample of 179 retrenched professionals, managers, executives, and technicians, we found that psychological capital (self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience) was positively related with displaced employees' level of perceived employability, a coping resource. Perceived employability was positively related with problem-focused and symptom-focused coping strategies. Whereas problem-focused coping was positively related with preparatory and active job search, symptom-focused coping strategy was not. The relationship between psychological capital and preparatory and active job search was mediated by perceived employability and problem-focused coping. Implications of our findings are discussed.

Objectives. We systematically reviewed the literature on the impact of returning to work on health among working-aged adults. Methods. We searched 6 electronic databases in 2005. We selected longitudinal studies that documented a transition from unemployment to employment and included a comparison group. Two reviewers independently appraised the retrieved literature for potential relevance and methodological quality. Results. Eighteen studies met our inclusion criteria, including 1 randomized controlled trial. Fifteen studies revealed a beneficial effect of returning to work on health, either demonstrating a significant improvement in health after reemployment or a significant decline in health attributed to continued unemployment. We also found evidence for health selection, suggesting that poor health interferes with people’s ability to go back to work. Some evidence suggested that earlier reemployment may be associated with better health. Conclusions. Beneficial health effects of returning to work have been documented in a variety of populations, times, and settings. Return-to-work programs may improve not only financial situations but also health.

Research Summary: Despite the prevalence of CEO dismissal, theory only briefly explores its consequences. Past research indicates few fired CEOs regain employment. We suggest dismissal stigmatizes executives; however, stigmatization is greatest when character questioning causal accounts exist, which affect the likelihood of regaining a CEO position. Furthermore, we argue that reputational and social capital provide signals of executive quality that moderate the level of stigmatization experienced when character questioning causal accounts exist. Following 280 dismissed CEOs, we find that social capital increases the likelihood of rehiring for those with character questioning causal accounts, but negatively impacts those without causal accounts. Alternatively, we find reputational capital positively influences those without causal accounts, while having a slight negative relationship for those with causal accounts. Managerial Summary: Dismissed CEOs often desire second chances to run companies; however, few are ever afforded the opportunity. We explore what allows some dismissed CEOs to regain employment as a CEO. We find that reasons surrounding a CEO's dismissal influence such prospects depending on the CEO's prior reputation and social capital. In particular, social capital through elite education increases the likelihood of regaining a position when the CEO's character is called into question. Alternatively, a strong reputation increases the likelihood of regaining a CEO position when a CEO's character has not been called into question. These findings suggest that dismissed CEOs can regain a CEO position; however, this likelihood is strongly influenced by how others perceive the executive and their concerns about prior behavior.

We assess the strength of information spillovers relating unemployment duration of workers displaced by firm closures to their former colleagues’ current employment status. Displaced-specific networks are recovered from a 20-year panel of matched employer-employee data. Spillovers are identified by comparing performances of codisplaced workers. A one-standard-deviation increase in the network employment rate reduces unemployment duration by about 8%; the effect is magnified if contacts recently searched for a job and if their current employer is spatially and technologically closer to the displaced worker; stronger ties and lower competition for information favor reemployment. Several indirect tests exclude other interaction mechanisms.

Recent research on unemployment has not sufficiently acknowledged how unemployment reverberates within families, particularly emotionally. This article uses data from more than 50 in-depth interviews to illuminate the emotional demands that men's unemployment makes beyond the unemployed individual. It show that wives of unemployed men do two types of emotion work—self-focused and other-focused—and both are aimed toward facilitating husbands' success in the emotionally arduous white-collar job-search process. This article extends research on emotion work by suggesting that participants perceive wives' emotion work as a resource with potential economic benefits in the form of unemployed men's reemployment. The findings furthermore suggest that as a resource, wives' emotion work is shaped by the demands of the labor market that their husbands encounter.

Unemployment has severe consequences that persist over the life course, including higher risk of future unemployment and worse employment conditions. While the existence of scarring effects has become conventional wisdom, labour market sociologists have pointed out that their magnitude differs between institutional contexts. Recently, the focus of the discussion has shifted towards the role of activation policies, which are suspected to speed up labour market integration but worsen reemployment quality, hereby deepening the scarring effects of unemployment. To contribute to this discussion, this article provides an analysis of the impact of a large-scale counselling and monitoring scheme on unemployed workers by means of matching/weighting analyses. In contrast to sanctions, the counselling and monitoring programme fosters labour market integration without impairing job quality. Apparently, activation programmes pose a danger of impairing job quality, but this negative effect can be avoided for programmes based on more emphatic governance principles.