New research suggests that people who lose their jobs are less willing to trust others for up to a decade after being laid-off.

Researchers at Manchester University found that being made redundant or forced into unemployment can scar trust to such an extent that even after finding new work this distrust persists. This means that the large-scale job losses of the recent recession could lead to a worrying level of long-term distrust among the British public and risks having a detrimental effect on the fabric of society.

"People's willingness to trust others tends to remain largely stable over their lifetime. However, this work shows that trauma like redundancy can shift people's outlook of the world and this change persists long after the experience occurred," social scientist and researcher Dr. James Laurence said in a statement. "Society is still recovering from one of the longest recessions this century and much has been discussed in counting the economic costs of that. This study looks at the social costs of recession."

For the study, researchers analyzed data from nearly 7,000 British adults. Researchers used this data to examine "job displacement," meaning involuntary job loss from redundancy, downsizing, restructuring, or similar.

Laurence focused on responses from 1991, when they were 33-years-old, and 2008, when they were and 50, noting whether they had been laid off in the interim years. At age 50, the probability of expressing trust was 4.5 percent lower amongst those who had experienced job displacement over the previous 17 years than those who had not. That figure rose to 7 percent among those for who work forms a key part of their identity and sense of self.

"Even a single experience of redundancy can lead to depressed trust and what is particularly concerning is that people reported less willingness to trust others even after they got another job. The study shows that the experience of redundancy can scar an individual's trust in others," Laurence said. "This has important implications not just for the person involved but for society as a whole as trust can have significant benefits, from health and happiness, to social cohesion, efficient democratic governance and economic development."

The findings are detailed in the journal Social Science Research.