Project Title: JOBS II Preventive Intervention for Unemployed Displaced
Workers
Principal Investigator: Amiram D. Vinokur
Co-Investigators: Richard H. Price, Director of MPRC
Contact Person and Information:
Amiram D. Vinokur, Ph.D.
Senior Reseach Scientist
Institute for Social Research
426 Thompson St. / Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1248
Tel 734-647-0858 / Fax 248-920-5334 avinokur@umich.edu
STUDY AIMS:
To prevent depression and other manifestations of poor mental health and promote high quality reemployment.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE INITIAL SAMPLE:
Selection criteria:
(1) Having worked on a job for a period that qualifies for collecting unemployment payments from the State of Michigan, (2) being laid off and unemployed for less than 14 weeks, and (3) looking for a new job.
Sample characteristics:
Gender:
Ethnicity:
Socioeconomic Status:
COMPLETED WAVES:
Wave significant others significant others significant others
2 (Pretest)
3 (Posttest)
4 (Posttest)
55% females, 45% males
76% whites, 24% others
All levels of socioeconomic status
Age of Subjects
1 (Screening) 36.0 yrs
36.0 yrs
36.0 yrs
36.5 yrs
N:
2,464
2,005 + 1,649
1,604 + 1,454
1,744 + 1,631

significant others significant others
5 (Posttest)
6 (Posttest)
38.0 yrs
40.0 yrs
CURRENT FUNDED WAVES:
Work continues with secondary analyses
DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES
Middle Adulthood
MEASURES
Personal:
Personality
Job-search self-efficacy,
1,608 + 1,409
220 + 220
(special subsample) job search motivation, mastery, self-esteem, internal control orientation
Symptoms and Syndromes
Screening level of depression symptomatology,
Depression symptomatology, anxiety, emotional functioning, distress, likelihood for meeting diagnostic criteria for Major Depressive
Episode (MDE)
Social:
Stresses and Supports
Reemployment quality
(hours working per week, wage rate, fringe benefits, job satisfaction) financial strain, low level of social skills
REPRESENTATIVE FINDINGS:
The findings for the entire 6-month follow-up period demonstrated that the JOBS intervention benefited significantly the high risk participants compared to their

counterparts in the control condition. These findings were also corroborated by the reports of the significant others. At the 2-year follow-up period, the JOBS intervention continued to have a significant benefit for the participants. The respondents in the intervention group had higher level of employment and lower levels of poor mental health compared to their counterparts in the control group.
The intervention was found to have increased a sense of mastery, which influenced the high-risk participants’ success in regaining employment. The increase in mastery helped to prevent and reduce depression symptoms directly and through the effects on reemployment. In conclusion, the findings demonstrated that the effects of the intervention on mental health were mediated by a sense of mastery, reemployment and the subsequent reduction in financial strain.
REPRESENTATIVE PUBLICATIONS:
Vinokur, A.D., van Ryn, M., Gramlich, E.M. & Price, R.H. (1991). Long-term follow-up and benefit-cost analysis of the Jobs Project: A preventive intervention for the unemployed. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 76, 213-219.
Vinokur, A.D., Price, R.H., & Caplan, R.D. (1991). From field experiments to program implementation:
Assessing the potential outcomes of an experimental intervention program for unemployed persons. American Journal of Community Psychology, 19, 543-562.
Price, R.H., van Ryn, M., & Vinokur, A.D. (1992). Impact of preventive job search intervention on the likelihood of depression among the unemployed. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 33, 158-
167. van Ryn, M., & Vinokur, A.D. (1992). How did it work? An examination of the mechanisms through which a community intervention influenced job-search behavior among an unemployed sample.
American Journal of Community Psychology, 5, 577-597.
Vinokur, A.D., Price, R.H., Caplan, R.D., van Ryn, M., & Curran, J. (1995). The JOBS I Preventive
Intervention for Unemployed Persons: Its Short and Long-Term Effects on Reemployment and
Mental Health. In Murphy, L.R., J.J. Jr. Hurrell, G.L. Sauter, & G.P. Keita (Eds.), Job stress interventions. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.
Price, R.H., & Vinokur, A.D. (1995). Supporting Career Transitions in time of organizational downsizing:
The Michigan JOBS Program. In M. London (Ed.). Employees, careers, and job creation:
Developing growth-oriented human resource strategies and programs (pp. 191-209). San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Vinokur, A.D., Price, R.H. & Schul, Y. (1995). Impact of the JOBS intervention on unemployed workers varying in risk for depression. American Journal of Community Psychology, 23, 39-74.
Vinokur, A.D., Price, R.H., & Caplan, R.D. (1996). Hard times and hurtful partners: How financial strain affects depression and relationship satisfaction of unemployed persons and their spouses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71 (1), 166-179.
Bolger, N. Foster, M., Vinokur, A.D., Ng, R. (1996). Close relations and adjustment to breast cancer.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 283-294.
Caplan, R.D., Vinokur, A.D., & Price, R.H. (1997). From job loss to reemployment: Field experiments in

prevention-focused coping. In George W. Albee & Thomas Gullotta (Eds.). Primary Prevention
Works, (pp.341-379). CA: Thousand Oaks, Sage Publication.
Vinokur, A.D., & Schul, Y. (1997). Mastery and Inoculation Against Setbacks as Active Ingredients in the
JOBS Intervention for the Unemployed. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 65, 867-
877.
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.