The Health Service Executive (HSE) and Dept of Social Welfare are looking for volunteers from the public service for a joint study into the impact and implications of long term unemployment.
“Because of the boom years we don’t have up to date analysis of the effects of long term unemployment but we are aware of the likely increase in depression, anxiety, despondency, inertia low self esteem and listlessness,” a HSE spokesperson said.
“We have run into a stumbling block in that we don’t yet have enough long term unemployed people yet to base a study on but we have reached the conclusion that we can overcome this problem by using public servants as a stand-in for the study group,” she added.
“All indications suggest that the typical profile of someone who has been in the public service for several years and somebody who has been unemployed for a like period would be quite interchangeable. We are lucky to have this valuable resource to base our studies on.”
