She explains that worry about the future and inability to take action are just a few reasons employees may find worry over potential job loss nerve-racking. “When you consider that not only income but so many of the important benefits that give Americans some piece of mind—including health insurance and retirement benefits—are tied to employment for most people, it's understandable that persistent job insecurity is so stressful.”

Information for both studies was obtained during periods of economic uncertainty. Participants were asked to evaluate their current state of health and their likelihood of job loss. Phone interviews (and questionnaires between interviews) using a five-point scale—1 being “poor” and 5 being “excellent”—enabled researchers to track certain changes. The strongest association with health problems was linked to people who were catergorized as “persistently insecure.”

 “Job insecurity is nothing new,” Burgard says, “but the numbers experiencing persistent job insecurity could be considerably higher during this global recession, so these findings could apply much more broadly today than they did even a few years ago.”

Job insecurity can cause a variety of adverse physical, mental and emotional health complications. Short-term and prolonged stress can weaken the immune system, cause headaches, raise heart rate, increase anxiety, and cause skin and stomach problems.

If this stress is not dealt with, it can lead to greater heart problems (such as heart attack or high blood pressure), emotional disorders/depression, asthma, and stroke. In some cases, substance abuse may result from using alcohol or drugs as a coping mechanism. In one of the groups, prolonged stress due to job insecurity was a greater predictor of employee health than smoking or high blood pressure.

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