We need to change our relationship with work

Being unemployed is hard, but our relationship with work makes it more so, writes Tom Boland

THE experience of unemployment has both acute and chronic forms. Firstly, there is the experience of losing a job. Many people we spoke to under the auspices of the Waterford Unemployment Experiences Research Collaborative described losing their job as a traumatic event. Redundancy can entail a perceived loss of status, a severe drop in self-esteem and often a problem with identity. Without your career, job, or profession, who are you, after all?

Nothing but a “jobseeker”; a person defined by what they lack. Yet we also encountered extraordinarily optimistic and resilient attitudes. However, there is no small human cost to job loss, particularly among older men with families to support, who sometimes fall into isolation, depression, problem drinking and worse.