In 2006, during winter, the Electrolux Company shut down the biggest refrigerator company in the United States, and shifted it to Juarez, Mexico in pursuit of a cheaper workforce. The company had employed approximately three thousand employees, and the consequence of the shutdown was greatly felt in the lives of these workers. Their lives were turned into disarray considering they had lived a comfortable life characterized by lovely homes and holiday vacations before shutting down of the Electrolux firm.
Because of unemployment, many of the employees succumbed to a stroke, hypertension, and even committed suicide because external life events like unemployment do find their way under the skin, and alter the manner in which the human’s psychological system operates. In that, unemployment, which is an unfavourable life event, leads to increased stressors in the body, and these stress responses subject the body to both severe and prolonged health problems . The risk of many people falling ill of such chronic diseases is high in the United States because as middle-class citizens find their well-being and way of life increasingly uncertain due to corporate profit seeking, the affluent are earning the spoils of America’s winner-take-all society. The situation is different in other countries like Sweden because those laid off received eighty percent of their salaries and training for new jobs, unlike in the United States where such outlaid workers are left to fend for themselves, and they end up paying the price in terms of riches and health.
One year later, after the Greenville plant was closed, there was an upsurge in the number of people being treated for chronic illness at the local hospital because a large population of the local community was rendered jobless. Many people who found themselves with no work turned to drug abuse and alcoholism that led to increased cases of addiction and violence. Individuals who were idle also turned to domestic abuse, considering that they could not provide for their families as they used to. Therefore, these people started leading lives that subjected them to high risks of falling ill of various diseases like hypertension. Moreover, most people developed high levels of stress that led them to fall ill of severe diseases like blood sugar level rising or falling. Within one year of the massive layoff, the hospital recorded thrice as much the number of sick people it used to treat, and the number was even predicted to increase.
According to Professor Harvey, he believes that the rise in the number of people being treated for severe and chronic diseases is just the beginning, and the hospital should be ready for a higher increase. In fact, he predicted an increase in the number of excess mortality by one hundred and thirty-four cases that translate to a fourteen percent increase. This rate of increase will not only reflect those who were laid off but also to their families and to the bigger society.
In conclusion, most unemployed American’s risk falling ill of chronic diseases because they are left fending for themselves as the effluent go on to reap them of their earnings. The case of Electrolux firm was a reflection of what may happen considering that the local clinic thrice the number of patients one year after the layoff. In fact, the researchers predicted that the mortality rate would increase by one hundred and thirty-four with a period of ten years.
References
Unnutural causes: Is inequality making us sick. (2008). Not just a pay check. Retrieved from Unnutural Causes: http://www.unnaturalcauses.org/episode_descriptions.php?page=7
