Are You a Corporate Refugee?

Book excerpt: During the mid-1990s, 1 in 16 workers were displaced by downsizing, reorganization, or corporate mergers and acquisitions. Ruth Luban, a counselor who specializes in recovery from job loss, recognizes that leaving the workforce causes not only a loss of income, but also of identity, structure, and community. Her step-by-step program addresses these problems and explains how to work through them. Using case studies, exercises, and informative sidebars, she identifies the five emotional stages of job loss:* On the Brink * Letting Go * In the Wilderness * Seeing the Beacon * In the New Land Luban shows how to move through the emotional upheaval of job loss and return to the workforce with a sense of control and direction.