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KMID : 0904520160410010061
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Health and Medical Sociology
2016 Volume.41 No. 1 p.61 ~ p.97
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Massive Layoff and Health - A Study in SsangYong Motor Workers -
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Park Joo-Young
Yoon Jae-Hong
Kim Seung-Sup
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Abstract
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Massive layoff is termination of employment among a group of employees for business reasons. After IMF economic crisis in 1997, the annual number of the laid off has increased rapidly in South Korea. More than 50,000 workers lost their job due to the layoff in 2013. However, few researches have been conducted about health of the laid-off in South Korea.
To understand how layoff is related to health of workers, we analyzed a survey about the laid-off (N=140) and the reinstated (N=176) in SsangYong Motor Company during May 2015. Both groups were laid off in 2009, but only the latter have returned to work at the company in 2013. To compare the health conditions of the both groups with the automobile workers who did not experience lay-off (hereafter, ‘the autoworker’), we additionally analyzed the dataset from The Korean Working Conditions Survey (2011) and The Korean Welfares Panel Study (2006). This research found that the prevalence among the laid-off was significantly higher compared to the reinstated as well as ‘the autoworker’, regarding mental illness including depressive symptoms (the laid off 79.1% vs the reinstated 52.8% vs the autoworker 10.1%) and physical disease including headache and eye-strain (the laid-off 89.0% vs the reinstated 62.0% vs the autoworker 17.1%). Furthermore, the number of workers who have developed diseases such as gastroduodenal ulceration (21.1% vs 7.7%), hypertension (23.7% vs 13.1%), and fatty liver (19.0% Vs 9.4%) since the massive layoff in 2009, was significantly higher among the laid-off compared to the reinstated. Similar findings were observed about smoking, self-rated health, and sleep quality. These findings about poor health condition of the laid off might be explained by experience of social isolation and discrimination as well as financial deprivation. Our findings show that health of the laid-off was much worse compared to the autoworker and the reinstated. Additionally, the comparison results between the laid-off and the reinstated suggest that the reinstatement may play a role in improving health of the laid off, particularly considering similar sociodemographic characteristics, work experience, and experience of layoff in 2009 between the two groups.
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KEYWORD
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SsangYong Motor Company, massive layoff, dismissal, redundancy, unemployment, reinstatement
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