Experiential differences between voluntary and involuntary job redundancy on depression, job-search activity, affective employee outcomes and re-employment quality

The current study used learned helplessness theory and legacy theory to examine experiential differences in voluntary vs. involuntary job redundancy in a baseline study (Study 1) and a 3-month retest (Study 2). The sample for Study I comprised 102 job seekers who had voluntarily taken a job redundancy and 114 job seekers who had been made involuntarily redundant from their last job. Results at Study I showed that voluntarily redundant participants experienced lower levels of depression and engaged in more job-search activity than those who experienced involuntary redundancy. Employees who became re-employed 3 months later (voluntarily redundant N = 28, involuntarily redundant N = 26) were compared on depression, organizational commitment, perceived job insecurity and perceived re-employment quality. The involuntarily redundant employees reported higher depression, lower organizational commitment, higher perceived job insecurity and lower perceived re-employment quality. The voluntarily redundant employees also experienced a significant drop in depression upon re-employment while the involuntarily redundant employees reported no significant changes to depression scores from baseline. Implications for practice and future research are discussed together with the limitations of the two studies.