BBC.COM: Unemployment during coronavirus: The psychology of job loss

Description

What’s more? These exceptional circumstances might serve as a psychological scapegoat – at first. But then uncertainties about how the workforce is changing, even before the pandemic, can come into play, says Cary Cooper, professor of organisational psychology at the University of Manchester.

“Individuals can psychologically blame the pandemic rather than themselves,” he says. “But [what] might follow is that organisations may realise, the longer this goes on, that they don’t need as many people. That is, that technology could replace many. That will be the biggest fear and longer term consequence.”