The Anticipation of Plant Closing: Employee Reactions.

This article examines the feelings and reactions of these employees shortly after the announcement of the plant closing. Recently, many employees in the U.S. have been displaced as a result of downsizing, reengineering, work force reductions, and plant closings. Between 1983 and 1988, a total of 4.6 million workers lost their jobs. Fully 2.7 million of these workers lost their jobs as a direct result of plant closings, a figure that accounts for 57.9% of all the displaced workers. A plant closing may have a traumatic effect on the health and well-being of both the dislocated workers and the surrounding communities. Some researchers have focused on the negative attitudes, adverse health consequences, increased alcoholism, suicide rates, divorce rates, and reduced psychological well-being of individual workers who have been displaced. The major advantage of advance notice is that it gives employees and the surrounding communities time to adjust to the loss of the plant. Advance notice also reduces the duration of time individuals are without work but has no impact on their subsequent earnings. it has also been shown that productivity is not affected by the announcement of a plant closing.