Not to mention the stress of losing health insurance.

Sad. reminds me of the song 'Frankie teardrop' by Suicide. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YprQnzRfjg

They should have plenty of data for a comprehensive longitudinal study- people have been getting laid off from the Bethlehem plant in Lackawanna almost as long as I've been alive. My dad worked there in the 70s before he got the hell out and moved to Canada. I can still remember how unreal it looked to drive past the mill on the way to my grandparents' (or to drive back at night with all the ovens going and the stacks venting). Last time I was in that area, all of that was gone except for the galvanizing plant. Now I guess that's gone too.

When the main part of the mill closed, it pretty much killed off Buffalo. The funniest thing my grandfather ever said was in response to my grandmother complaining how no-one goes downtown anymore (this was sometime after the closures. When she suggested that people were "scared to death," he replied "not exactly- some of them were clubbed to death."

So if I get fired, can I sue my ex-employer for attempted homicide? :D

It also reminds me of this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9VZFyLQzok

And this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6JCqWUfQns

On the upside, being laid off from the local steel mill can also provide the basis for a raunchy musical comedy about male strippers.

For injured workers, there's research that suggests getting them back to work sooner rather than later improves quality of life. Working light duty or even just visiting the place of work if they're not working is helpful in getting people to recover fully too.
Which is of course not too helpful info if there's no place of work to return to.

I was recently reminded of an experiment where intermittently electrocuted rats were given an access to another rat, who they would attack and bite, apparently taking out their frustrations, were significantly healthier and less stressed as a result. (compared to rats that remained in isolation after being shocked) The trauma of others being sick and unemployed inspires empathy, but the idea of hordes of angry unemployed people is a bit more worrisome! High unemployment is a problem for all of society, not just the unemployed themselves.

i'm out of work at the moment and having an unusually difficult time finding employment. i've taken to lifting weights like a maniac to stave off the frustration (because well, it's either that or bourbon), but i have to admit, i hadn't even considered biting rats. it's worth a shot i guess.

I have been canned twice in my life. In one case it was a tactical layoff - the place I worked found an unqualified person who would do my job for half my price. The second was a little more complicated.

I gave my work notice 4 months before I intended to leave in order to allow them to find a suitable replacement. In return for the warning, I was canned a month later one day before our paid vacation - the new guy started one day after it finished.

I was extremely bitter about the ordeal. My wife was pregnant at the time and I had been getting underpaid anyway. I took comfort in the fact that I had a decent job to go to three months later and used the time to work off the stress that had built up over three years of a crappy job.

In the long run, it was the vacation that I needed and it allowed me to regain the enthusiasm that had been sucked out of me over the past four years.

Now, six years on, I am glad it happened.

Fascinating article. Part of what I found interesting was the idea that any steel mills in the mid-Atlantic managed to last this long. I grew up in western PA in the 80s, and they were almost all gone in that area, or on their very last legs. I would have thought any vestige of Bethlehem Steel was long gone, too. I remember visiting Bethlehem, PA, about 10 years ago and being awed by the massive ruins of that mill.

I can easily see how this is true. I've been out of work for almost six months and it is pretty soul grinding to suddenly not have the routine you are used to plus a drastic pay decrease.

This is interesting, because we have known for decades that traumatic and stressful events relate to sudden heart attacks in women (misnamed "broken heart syndrome"). It should really be no surprise that men are vulnerable to the same sort of thing.

I've been out of work for six months. At first it felt like a pair of pliers pinching my heart. The pain went up my arm to my neck. I was worried about heart disease. I called my "primary care" doc, and he said go right to the ER. So I went to the ER, and they did a bunch of tests, but could find nothing physically wrong. "It's not your heart talking to you," is how the hospital doc put it to me.
Now, my throat has seized up. My primary care doc says it's a throat spasm. My left ear aches all the time, and my throat is weird; tight, I'm swallowing all the time but I can't make it go away.
Anyway, I'm going to a psychologist now for CBT. He says he'll teach me how to relax my muscles and breathe right. All I know is, I can't go on like this.

My American neighbours to the south, there is a Union for the Unemployed eh. Go here:
http://www.unionofunemployed.com/blog/recent-news/ucubed-catching-hold-and-gaining-momentum/

It's growing millipede legs, Good Luck!