Nobody should face this alone: why community matters now

Losing work, or lying awake wondering if you’re next, is frightening. There’s the maths of rent and bills. There’s grief for a role you were good at, for the people you saw every day, for the version of you that had an easy answer to “so, what do you do?” And there’s something fewer people warn you about: how quiet it can get.

The colleagues you chatted with every morning are suddenly in a different world. The work group chat carries on without you. Because job loss so often comes wrapped in shame, many of us pull back from people just when we need them most. If that’s where you are, please hear this first: it isn’t a personal failing, and you shouldn’t have to carry it alone.

This piece is about the people who can help carry it. Not self-help. Solidarity.

Why does worry about work hurt so much?

If you’re struggling, you’re not overreacting. In a 2009 review of more than 300 studies, psychologists Karsten Paul and Klaus Moser found that about 34% of unemployed people had psychological problems, compared with 16% of people in work. Studies that followed people over time suggested unemployment doesn’t just go along with distress; it helps cause it. The effect was stronger in countries with weaker unemployment protection.

Work gives most of us more than a wage: a reason to get up, people to see, a sense of being useful. Most of us find self-worth in what we do. That’s completely normal. (We write more about this in Your job ≠ your purpose.)

And the road ahead feels uncertain for many. In its Future of Jobs Report 2025, the World Economic Forum said employers expect around 92 million jobs to be displaced by 2030, even as others are created. That’s a forecast from a survey of over 1,000 companies, with several causes, not only AI. But a global count of new jobs is little comfort if yours is the one that goes. In our view, nobody yet has a convincing plan for who pays when incomes disappear, and losing work with no safety net is a real harm. Until there is one, much of the catching will be done by people.

Why the people around you matter so much right now

In a classic 1978 study, sociologist Susan Gore followed men who lost their jobs when their factories closed. The rise in distress was concentrated among those who felt they had little support from the people around them. Later research is more mixed: a 2020 US study found support softened the link between job loss and depression mainly for people who were already better off and better supported. Support isn’t shared out fairly. Those who need it most often have the least, which is exactly why it can’t be left to luck.

Psychologists Jolanda Jetten, Catherine Haslam and Alex Haslam call their approach the “social cure”: the groups we belong to become part of who we are, and that sense of “us” helps people cope. In a 2013 study led by Tegan Cruwys, using data on thousands of adults over 50 in England, people who belonged to more groups were less likely to become depressed later. Among depressed people who belonged to no groups, joining one was linked to a 24% lower risk of relapse, and joining three to a 63% lower risk. It’s observational, so it can’t rule out that people who feel better simply join more things.

Is it belonging, or just turning up?

Belonging. In a 2014 follow-up, Cruwys and colleagues tracked 52 adults at risk of depression in a community recreation group, and 92 adults with depression in group therapy. In both, people who came to feel the group was theirs saw bigger drops in symptoms, even allowing for how often they attended.

What happens when work’s social world disappears?

Retirement isn’t the same as losing a job, but it shows what happens when work stops organising someone’s social life. In a 2016 BMJ Open study, Niklas Steffens and colleagues followed 424 retirees in England for six years. People who kept their groups had a lower risk of dying during the study than those who lost them, and each group lost was linked to roughly a 10% drop in quality of life. Healthier people may find it easier to stay involved, so this isn’t proof of cause. But when work’s structure falls away, the groups you keep carry real weight.

People have always caught each other

None of this is new. Long before the welfare state, working people in Britain formed friendly societies: members paid in a few pence a week, and the society helped them through sickness, unemployment or other hardship, so they could stay out of the workhouse. By the late 1800s these societies had millions of members.

In A Paradise Built in Hell (2009), Rebecca Solnit looked at disasters from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake to Hurricane Katrina and argued that people far more often respond with kindness and improvised mutual aid than with panic. Britain saw this in 2020: LSE researchers estimated that around 4,300 mutual aid groups were active in the UK, with some three million people involved, most set up after the pandemic began.

What we think this means

Here’s our view. Community is not a replacement for a wage, or for a fair safety net, and we’d never pretend it is. But it keeps people standing while the bigger questions get argued over. No app, ours included, can notice that you’ve gone quiet, turn up with soup, or remind you that you’re still one of “us”. People can.

Political scientist Robert Putnam, in Bowling Alone (2000), described bonding ties between people who are alike and bridging ties across differences. In hard times we need both: people who already get us, and people from other walks of life who might know of a job, a skill, or another way to see things.

If you’re struggling right now: small steps that help

1. Tell one person the truth. Not the brave version. Just “this has been a hard few weeks”. Many people are glad to be trusted with it.
2. Let people help. Receiving is half of mutual aid. Saying yes to a lift, a meal or a CV read-through lets someone else show up for you.
3. Find people in the same boat. In the University of Michigan’s JOBS programme, recently unemployed people met in small groups to practise job-hunting and prepare for setbacks together. Two years on, participants had higher re-employment and fewer symptoms of depression than a comparison group, though not every evaluation found lasting gains.
4. Pick one thing that repeats. In a 2015 Oxford study involving Robin Dunbar, new adult education classes grew closer over the first few months. A weekly class, a volunteering shift or a walking group all count. Give it time.
5. Look after the basics. Keep a loose routine, protect your sleep, move your body, and set limits on doom-scrolling (more in Feeling AI anxiety? Here’s what helps).
6. Offer something small when you can. Checking in on a former colleague or passing on a lead is mutual aid too. Being needed, even briefly, can be a quiet comfort when work has stopped asking for you.

If you’re finding it hard to cope, please talk to your GP or doctor. In the UK and Ireland you can call Samaritans free, any time, on 116 123. Wherever you are, local crisis lines can help.

If you’d like someone to talk to

Everconnected is a place to meet like-minded people, find community and have genuine conversations, one to one, by voice. It isn’t a crisis or mental health service. It’s free to join: create an account at app.everconnected.com, or get the app from the App Store or Google Play.

Questions people ask

Sources

1. Paul, K. I., & Moser, K. (2009). Unemployment impairs mental health: Meta-analyses. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 74(3), 264-282. doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2009.01.001
2. World Economic Forum (2025). Future of Jobs Report 2025: 78 million new job opportunities by 2030 but urgent upskilling needed to prepare workforces [Press release, 8 January 2025]. weforum.org/press/2025/01/future-of-jobs-report-2025-78-mill
3. Gore, S. (1978). The effect of social support in moderating the health consequences of unemployment. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 19(2), 157-165. (Findings as summarised in Turner, R. J., 1991, review of social support research.) mprc.isr.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Turner1991.pdf
4. The moderating effect of social support and social integration on the relationship between involuntary job loss and health (2020). Journal of Applied Gerontology. doi.org/10.1177/0733464820921082
5. Jetten, J., Haslam, C., & Haslam, S. A. (Eds.) (2012). The social cure: Identity, health and well-being. Psychology Press. doi.org/10.4324/9780203813195
6. Cruwys, T., Dingle, G. A., Haslam, C., Haslam, S. A., Jetten, J., & Morton, T. A. (2013). Social group memberships protect against future depression, alleviate depression symptoms and prevent depression relapse. Social Science & Medicine, 98, 179-186. doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2013.09.013
7. Cruwys, T., et al. (2014). Feeling connected again: Interventions that increase social identification reduce depression symptoms in community and clinical settings. Journal of Affective Disorders, 159, 139-146. doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2014.02.019
8. Steffens, N. K., Cruwys, T., et al. (2016). Social group memberships in retirement are associated with reduced risk of premature death: Evidence from a longitudinal cohort study. BMJ Open, 6(2), e010164. doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2015-010164
9. University of Queensland (2016, 16 February). Want a longer life? Join the club [News release]. news.uq.edu.au/2016-02-16-want-longer-life-join-club
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11. Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine. What were friendly societies? www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/feature/friendly-societi
12. Solnit, R. (2009). A paradise built in hell: The extraordinary communities that arise in disaster. Viking. (Review, Stanford Social Innovation Review.) ssir.org/articles/entry/paradise_built_in_hell_extraordinary
13. Power, A., & Benton, E. (2021). Where next for Britain’s 4,300 mutual aid groups? LSE COVID-19 Blog. researchonline.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/111292
14. Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. Simon & Schuster. www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/bowling-alone-collapse-and-
15. Vinokur, A. D., Schul, Y., Vuori, J., & Price, R. H. (2000). Two years after a job loss: Long-term impact of the JOBS program on reemployment and mental health. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 5(1), 32-47. (Study review: US Department of Labor, CLEAR.) clear.dol.gov/study/two-years-after-job-loss-long-term-impac
16. US Department of Labor, CLEAR. Long-term follow-up and benefit-cost analysis of the Jobs Program (Vinokur et al., 1991) [Study review]. clear.dol.gov/Study/Long-term-follow-and-benefit-cost-analys
17. Pearce, E., Launay, J., & Dunbar, R. (2015). The ice-breaker effect: Singing mediates fast social bonding. Royal Society Open Science, 2(10), 150221. doi.org/10.1098/rsos.150221
18. Samaritans. Contact us: call 116 123, free, 24 hours a day. www.samaritans.org