Job loss and its aftermath among managers and professionals: wounded, fragmented and flexible

Abstract

Based on longitudinal fieldwork with unemployed managers and professionals in their 50s, the article examines the meaning of job loss to these people and charts their subsequent efforts to restore their lives. The article identifies core similarities in their experiences and discerns different narrative strategies through which they have tried to make sense of their dismissal and sustain their selfhood. For all, job loss was a considerable trauma leading to a fragmentation of identity; this was compounded by subsequent rejection and perceived discrimination. Few were able to resume their earlier careers; the majority had to adjust their expectations downwards and opt for either virtual deskilling in less well paid and less demanding jobs or for an assortment of part-time, casual and voluntary work. Best 'adapted' (and least fragmented) were those who were prepared to forsake hopes of a return to highpowered jobs and display flexibility, resourcefulness and opportunism in adapting to their reduced circumstances.

Established, accelerated and emergent themes in flexible work research

“…A common theme in such studies is that individuals often have to contend with less well paid and less skilled jobs than they had previously held. As such a flexible outlook became essentially a blessing (in the sense of adaptability) as well as a curse, given labour market re-entry often involved occupational downgrading (Gabriel et al, 2013). With greater diversification of less secure contract forms and fewer FWAs designed to enhance workers autonomy and control in their jobs at the workplace level, it is little surprise that in flexible work research the dominant contemporary theme is that of insecurity and precarity.…”

“…Approaching the theme of those acutely affected by economic change from a very different angle, a small body of literature focuses on the responses of individuals to critical life events such as redundancy (Gardiner et al, 2009;Gabriel, 2013). Often such papers emphasise the importance of a flexible response and willingness to adapt.…”

“…Flexibility is conceptualised here in a very different way. The success or otherwise of individuals post-redundancy appears to hinge, to some extent on their personal capacity for adaptability or flexibility in the face of change (Gabriel, 2013).…”

Capabilities and Choices of Vulnerable, Long-Term Unemployed Individuals

“…Less attention has been paid to the degrees of freedom and choice of those attempting to re-enter the labour market. A period of unemployment reduces employment opportunities (Gabriel et al, 2013) and choice decreases the longer unemployment continues.…”

Agency and Structure in Social Mobility in the Light of Individualization: Empirical Research Review

“…Судьбоносный опыт встречается на любом этапе жизни, может носить негатив-ный, травмирующий характер и быть связан с увольнением Gabriel et al, 2013) или вынужденным выходом на пенсию , разводом родителей, болезнью, смертью близкого, конфликтом с семьей или сверстниками, насилием, ранней беременностью, экспериментами с наркотиками, переездом .…”