Losing a Job Without Upending Your Stability

"Employment is more than just a way to make a living; it provides structure to the day, a reason to get up in the morning, goals to pursue, meaning, identity and status.” ¹ Imagine going to work each day fearing that you’ll lose those daily foundations. Visualize being sent home with little or virtually no notice.

How would you share the news with those most affected by your loss of income? Where would you focus your energies? How would you survive, and who might help you?

When Harsh Reality and Uncertainty Strikes

From the University of New England in Portland, Maine, to the University of Pittsburgh and the Iowa Cancer Consortium, research into disease prevention, progression, and cures transformed economies. Fifty years ago, Pittsburgh’s economy was known for steel production; today, it is known for thousands of science and healthcare jobs, some funded by research grants.² The federal Veterans Affairs (VA) department links veterans with cutting-edge treatment as a core mission. When the Pittsburgh VA hospital was unable to renew the position of a staff member key to a clinical trial of an advanced cancer drug, the trial was put on hold.³ On a recent Virginia jaunt into history and national parks, visitors thanked front desk greeters, gift shop workers, tour leaders, and park rangers for their federal service, recognizing how different their educational experience, school field trips, and vacations would become without these workers. The same for rocket, space telescope, and science sites in Alabama, Florida, Maryland, and Texas.

Civil servants and military members entered public service knowing they may not net a high income, but confident that they'd receive a stable one, factoring in patriotism and pride in educating citizens while advancing discoveries in medicine, nature, history, science, and mental healthcare. For many, these dreams have now crash-landed.

When Calamity Lands

Roberto Duncan, an Ohio University professor and macroeconomics expert, reports that damage from the Palisades and Eaton, California, fires will likely impact prices, the cost of living, employment, agriculture, and the insurance markets in Los Angeles area and the rest of California.⁴ A few years after Hurricane Sandy ravaged the East Coast, researchers gave 1,000 New Jersey household members a mental health survey assessing for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and quality of life. Approximately 16 percent of respondents still experienced psychological distress two years after the natural disaster.⁵

Models of Grief

It’s understandable that threatened and displaced workers report decreased psychological, physical, and social well-being leading to anxiety and somatic stress, social withdrawal, depression, financial despair, anger, and greater risk of alcohol or substance abuse.

While different from the loss of a loved one, grief over lack of stability, employment, and housing insecurity affects people just the same. In one well-known diagram known as the TEAR model, grief tasks include accepting loss, experiencing the pain of it, adjustment to a new environment, and reinvestment in another reality. Using a grief wheel, there’s shock/deterioration, protest, disorganization, and reorganization, with recovery as the best outcome.

Experts recognize that loss involves a roller-coaster process in which shock and disbelief give people a sudden jolt, often leading to guilt, anger, frustration, or fear along with somatic concerns or physical complaints affecting the body and mind.

Supportive Healing

If you’ve been impacted by an unexpected job loss—federal, private, or disaster-based—your vocabulary leads to optimism or its opposite.

Affirmations such as “This is temporary,” “I will develop a new plan,” or “Other dreams are out there for me to find” might seem like a stretch at first.

Communicating with teens and adults, try: “You may have heard the headlines of… Well, my position didn’t make it, and I need to find a new path.” Teen or college-age children have their own set of worries, particularly if a home was lost or a job loss forces a relocation. It may be too soon to have specific answers, but parents can ground kids in hope and the sense of figuring out solutions as a family unit.

For preschool or elementary-age youngsters, Rachel Jamieson, M.S., and Karin Erickson, LICSW, published an online booklet called My Grown-Up’s Job, written for families impacted by the ongoing federal job cuts. It covers changes in work environment, moods, and suggestions for channeling one’s angst or protest into action.

Embrace New Paths Forward

Often, people want to help; they just don’t know how. Small gestures such as their mere presence, a home-cooked or restaurant meal, a walk that promotes exercise, or some other tangible offer of assistance conveys what words cannot.

While affected workers may feel a sense of embarrassment, therapists know that no one is immune to a crisis, including the loss of health, relationships, home, family, or employment. Those around you have lived life and known others who have survived and thrived, and if you’re at a loss again for what to say, a simple “Thanks for being here” or “I appreciate your kindness” sums it up.

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When Looking Like a Good Employee Is Mistaken for Being One

Many would do well to schedule therapy sessions, even immediately, when employee benefits may still cover or defray costs. Such sessions help displaced workers develop new routines, get moving each morning, and focus on specific job-search tasks or life planning.

Different directions may include a degree you never finished, retirement, or a second career—one that involves meaningful work, just in a different capacity; for retirees, often without high-intensity goals or economic pressures.

Transitions create turmoil in the short term but can end in long-term prosperity. Try as best you can to see new light and focus daily on steps that will help it emerge in your own new reality.

Copyright © 2025 Loriann Oberlin, MS