A 51-year-old father of two who worked in a French call center threw himself from a highway bridge in late September. He was the 24th employee of Franc Telecom to kill himself in the prior 19 months.

Workplace suicides also are causing alarm around the world. In the U.S., they climbed 28 percent to 251 cases in 2008, according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The economy is considered a key culprit.

What's the connection? Experts point to the multiple stresses piled on those who are left standing after a round of layoffs. "People don't realize the pressure of not being laid off," says Gary Chaison, professor of industrial relations at Clark University, Worcester, Mass.

The pressures come in threes:

• survivor's guilt from realizing you're still working because your colleagues were laid off

• pressure to take on the tasks of those who left and still perform well

• anxiety that comes from knowing you could be cut the next time around

After this latest death, Telecom's management agreed to reconsider previous transfer and layoff policies that had so distressed their employees. But acknowledgment of the psychological fallout of layoffs is rare.

In some quarters, there is still a great deal of stigma associated with psychological distress, which means workers may be reluctant to ask for the professional help they need.

Managers tend to look the other way, Chaison says. "After layoffs, companies want to promote the idea that 'Everything's fine now.' They think employees should just be thankful they have a job."

And while they probably are grateful to some extent, that's far from the whole story. Companies that lay off workers have higher than average turnover rates, 13 percent vs. 10 percent, according to a study by Charlie Trevor and Anthony Nyberg of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Some employees leave because of dissatisfaction with the managers who masterminded the cuts.

Joel Brockner, a social psychologist and professor of management at Columbia Business School, told Time magazine in an interview that the same executives who are quick to cite the severance packages provided to laid off employees are mum when asked about support planned for employees who remain.

This is a major problem in high-stakes fields. Take healthcare, for example. "When this emotional trauma persists in a health care organization, it is not only unhealthy for the workforce but it also creates a tremendous risk of harm to patients," writes Michael Frisina, a former faculty member at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point who now heads the leadership development consultancy The Frisina Group, Columbia, S.C.

Frisina suggests several steps managers can take, and they are applicable to any profession.

The first step is for managers to set aside time to listen to employees, taking stock of post-layoff concerns and even expressing some empathy. They can also encourage and support teamwork among remaining staff. Isolation is the enemy of mental health in stressful circumstances. It's also important for high-level managers to forge rich, long-term relationships between key leaders and the rest of the staff.

Companies also should communicate freely about the assistance they are providing to ex-employees, which can help to alleviate the guilt the survivors feel toward their laid off colleagues. If management plans to hire these employees back when the economy rebounds, that also can be a reassuring message.

Even when a company takes all these steps, serious depression can set in for some workers. Be on the lookout for the following warning signs, listed by Mental Health America as possible symptoms of on-the-job depression:

• frequently missing deadlines

• difficulty making decisions

• being unusually uncooperative

• racking up high number of absences

• a plethora of physical symptoms such as headaches or backaches.

Employees who are plagued by one or more of these symptoms may be in need of professional help. In severe economic times, being on the lookout for potential signs of serious stress is part of everyone's job description.