The aim of the present study was to reveal the social representation developed by workers who lost their jobs. Then some theoretical consideration about the productive restructuring processes was developed, specially about the changes which has been occurring concerning the job relations, the conflict mediation ways and their impacts on human subjectivism. The nature of this phenomenon led to a theoretical and methodological choice based on the presupposition of the interpretative approach. The meaning of losing the job was specially analysed by the view of the social representation theory. So, this study got a qualitative nature and it was realized with a sample of exworkers of a metallurgical automotive multinational company that had passed through a productive restructuring process. The social representation learned from the experience of being unemployed reaffirm the importance of this social question in terms of developing the human subjectivism, specially as a source of pressure and threat for citizenship.