An award has been given for a research project looking at how new jobs, the journey to work and the meaning of home play a role for men adjusting to being fired.

With massive job losses announced throughout the mining and manufacture industries, as well as the public sector and related fields, the work of one researcher suggests things may not be too bad for workers - if their sackings can be managed correctly.

University of South Australia lecturer in Regional and Urban Planning Dr Johannes Pieters has received the Peter Harrison Memorial Prize at the 2013 State of Australian Cities Conference in Sydney, recognising his research into the suburban context of men’s adjustment post-retrenchment.

While large scale factory closures are usually cast in the media as a community and personal disaster, the reality reveals a range of outcomes that are not always negative, according to Dr Pieters’ paper.

“In many ways, for the generations of men who have worked in heavy industry settings such as the automotive industry, what they face when they are retrenched is coming to terms with a perceived broken promise - the collapse of the idea of a job for life,” Dr Pieters says.

“The networks that relate to that notion connect across a person’s life - where they live and how they feel about home and the relationships that support their lives are important factors in how well they cope.”

He says the key to an easy transition is an adequate retrenchment package, tailored to the specific worker, industry and nearby labour market conditions.

“Losing a job you have held for a long time in an industry you believed to be a permanent fixture requires huge readjustment and unstressed time to plan and prepare for the next move, retraining, job searching, semi-retirement – so a good exit package gives people space to think about the next step.

“The research I undertook over three years with people who took voluntary redundancy or were retrenched from the car industry in Adelaide in 2004 showed that adjustment occurs at multiple levels – in terms of personal identity and reinvention of the working self in a new context, adjustment to the loss of the psychological and financial benefits of work and adjustments to a new balance between work and home,” Dr Pieters says.

“The experience of the end of employment in one job can be devastating, however this does not rule out the opening up of new and positive opportunities and new relationships with home and work and sometimes if not often, workers feel that their overall circumstances have improved over time.”

He says for some workers the relief of getting free from taxing physical work allows them to spend productive time with children and families. It is definitely worse for others, when new work can only be found a long way from home, creating stress and strain from the longer commute.

“What the research showed is that the impact of retrenchments or large scale industry shut downs cannot be viewed through a single or narrow lens,” he says.

“The impacts are multi-dimensional, they can be positive and negative, and they are deeply entrenched in the suburban home and work experience.

“But vital to positive outcomes is a starting point that allows workers the financial security and breathing space to make those adjustments.”

The Peter Harrison Memorial Prizes are reward research which is judged to make a distinctive contribution to knowledge and capacity for the sustainable development of Australian cities and regions.

They are administered by The Fenner School of Environment and Society and ANU Endowment for Excellence, The Australian National University, in collaboration with the State of Australian Cities Research Network (SOACRN).