Unemployment Syndrome during COVID-19: A Comparison of Three Population Groups

Of the serious problems that characterise the current crisis in Spain, the most alarming and revealing is unemployment, which, despite being so common, continues to be quite a negative experience for most people, often with serious negative effects on their biopsychosocial health. The perpetuation of this situation has given rise to a new syndrome of the unemployed. If these effects of economic downsizing are accompanied by the magnitude of the current situation brought about by COVID-19, the results can be devastating for the individuals and families experiencing it.

To compare the symptoms of the unemployed syndrome in three population groups.

Three groups were studied: short-term unemployed (n = 91), long-term unemployed (n = 150), and those unemployed during the COVID-19 pandemic (n = 94). Unemployment syndrome was assessed with the Unemployment Syndrome Scale (USS). The three population groups were contacted through web pages, social networks, etc. and answered the instruments online in a single session. Once the responses were obtained, their information was encoded in a database and analysed through the SPSS v. 21 program. Population groups were compared using the ANOVA analysis and the Bonferroni post hoc test.

The unemployed individuals who lost their job during the pandemic reported higher scores in the symptoms of the Unemployed Syndrome Scale compared to the long- and short-term unemployed individuals. ANOVA analyses for symptoms of USS were all significant in the different groups considering a significance level of <0.005. Participants who were unemployed for less than one year had lower scores in the USS than the long-term unemployed participants and those unemployed during the COVID-19 pandemic that reported a significantly higher number of symptoms in the USS.