ArticlesEffect of organisational downsizing on health of employees
Introduction
Downsizing, the reduction of personnel in an organisation, can be an effective tactic to ensure the survival of modern organisations,1 but it may also have adverse effects on the health of those people who continue to be employees. Downsizing can lead to increased job insecurity, changes in the nature of work and the working environment, and a deterioration in the relationship between management and employees.2
There have been few studies of the association between downsizing and health, but much clinical research has been done on the effects of job insecurity. These studies suggest that perceived job insecurity and the threat of redundancy result in anxiety, depression, burnout,3, 4 poor self-reported health status,5 poor quality of sleep,6 an increased rate of absenteeism because of ill health,7 and ischaemic heart disease.8 However, because feelings of job insecurity are to some extent affected by the personality of the individual, they may not reflect accurately the effects of downsizing. Orpen4 reported that although perceived job insecurity was related to anxiety and depression among all employees, levels of anxiety and depression did not differ between employees in jobs objectively assessed as safe or unsafe. Van Vuuren and colleagues9 found that feelings of job insecurity can be attributed not only to downsizing but also to poor managerial decision-making and characteristics such as age, health, and work experience.
We looked at how downsizing between 1991 and 1993 affected the health of Finnish local-government employees. The downsizing in some of the workplaces and occupations was the result of severe economic decline.
Section snippets
Methods
Between 1991 and 1995, Finland faced its most severe economic decline since World War I. Unemployment rose from 3·4% in 1990 to 18·9% in 1993.10 The number of Finnish local-government personnel fell by 1·4% in 1990–91, by 2·7% in 1991–92, by 7·8% in 1992–93, and by 2·7% in 1993–94.10
Our target population was local-government employees of the town of Raisio, in south-western Finland. We used employers' records to identify 981 employees in Raisio who had worked for at least 12 months during the
Statistical analysis
We calculated the number of periods of sick leave and the follow-up period in person-years for each employee. The rate of absenteeism per 100 person-years and the corresponding rate ratios were calculated. Because the number of spells of sick leave is a form of count data, Poisson regression models were fitted to the data.13, 14 Use of the Poisson model implies that the between-employee variance in rates of sick leave is equal to the expected rate of sick leave. When rates of sick leave vary
Results
According to the employers' records, hours worked in Raisio fell by 14·5 between 1991 and 1993, after which time they gradually increased. However, the number of hours worked in 1995 was 10·7% less than that before the decline; this reduction in hours worked was greater among women (16·1%) than among men (9·9%). During this period, the age profile of employees changed greatly. Before the decline, almost a third of hours worked related to employees aged 35 years or younger. After 1993, the worst
Discussion
Our findings suggest that there is a linear increase in the risk of long-term sick leave after downsizing. On the basis of the extensive Whitehall II studies,13, 16 lengthy absence because of sickness seems to reflect accurately the health of employees. In our study, all long spells of absence had been certified by a doctor. We assessed absence according to frequency, a measure more stable and less susceptible to error than other measures of absenteeism.17, 18 If account is also taken of the
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