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Job Insecurity Harms Both Employees and Employers

• Mindy Shoss,
• Shiyang Su,
• Ann Schlotzhauer,
• Nicole Carusone

Many organizations make no secret of their strategic use of the threat of job loss to motivate employees. But new research suggests that this isn’t just cruel — it’s often counterproductive.

Despite the well-documented negative effects of job insecurity on workers’ well-being, many employers continue to intentionally stoke fears of job loss among their workforce, under the assumption that this can motivate workers and reduce costs. But is this approach actually effective? The authors conducted a series of surveys with more than 600 American employees and found that while job insecure workers may indeed be motivated to try to improve their performance and adhere more closely to company policies, the stress, frustration, resentment, and exhaustion associated with this insecurity create a cognitive load that counteracts any positive effect on performance or rule-following. Job insecure workers are also more likely to focus on making their contributions visible rather than on actually doing valuable work, and some even hide information or intentionally sabotage their coworkers to make themselves look better in comparison. Worse yet, many of these behaviors spark vicious cycles that further reduce perceptions of job security. As such, the authors argue that fostering a sense of job insecurity isn’t just cruel — it’s often counterproductive.

According to a recent poll , 15% of U.S. workers today feel at risk of losing their jobs (despite actual unemployment rates remaining at record low levels). And this is no accident: Studies have shown that many workplaces intentionally stoke fears of job loss in an attempt to motivate workers and reduce costs, since job insecure workers may be less likely to demand raises and other benefits. Indeed, organizations such as Facebook and General Electric have made no secret of their strategic use of the threat of job loss to boost performance, despite the well-documented negative effects of job insecurity on employees’ sense of social connection, identity, and physical and mental health.

• MS Mindy Shoss is a professor of psychology at the University of Central Florida. Her research examines the future of work, worker well-being, job insecurity, and adaptation. She is a fellow of the Society for Industrial/Organizational Psychology.
• SS Shiyang Su is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Central Florida. Her research focuses on employee well-being, workplace incivility/mistreatment, and psychometrics.
• AS Ann Schlotzhauer is a doctoral candidate in Industrial and Organizational Psychology at the University of Central Florida. Her research focuses on precarious work, leadership, and diversity in the workplace.
• NC Nicole Carusone is a Senior Consultant at APTMetrics. She is an Industrial/Organizational Psychology practitioner who provides consulting and litigation support services in areas such as talent management, selection, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.

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The toll of job loss

The unemployment and economic crises sparked by COVID-19 are expected to have far-reaching mental health impacts

Vol. 51, No. 7 Print version: page 54

• Economic Inequality
• Financial Wellness

With the COVID-19 crisis creating economic upheaval unlike any seen since the Great Depression, public health officials and economists expect Americans will face continued job uncertainty and stress, and psychological interventions will be essential for helping people cope.

The mental health impacts of today’s job losses are likely to be significant, given a large body of research showing that unemployment is linked to anxiety, depression and loss of life satisfaction, among other negative outcomes. Similarly, underemployment and job instability—two additional results of the coronavirus pandemic—create distress for those who aren’t counted in the unemployment numbers.

Many of these people will need psychological support. In fact, research suggests that a mental-health-informed approach is not just helpful, it’s required: Job search programs that don’t involve nurturing people’s motivational and cognitive resources simply aren’t as effective as those that do. Psychologists can also inform policymakers on the physical and mental health consequences of unemployment.

“Losing a job and being unemployed for a long period of time is a psychological trauma and a financial trauma, and the two are closely intertwined,” says Carl Van Horn, PhD, a professor of public policy and an expert on workforce and unemployment policy at Rutgers University. Mental health support can be lifesaving, he says. While psychologists can’t solve the economic problem, “they can certainly help people cope and manage it.”

Risks to mental health

Research on unemployment shows that losing one’s job is detrimental to mental health—and often physical health—even without serious financial strain. “Work provides us time structure, it provides us identity, it provides us purpose and it also provides us social interactions with others,” says Connie Wanberg, PhD, an industrial and organizational psychologist at the University of Minnesota. “When you lose all that, it creates a lot of difficulties for people.”

Those at the most risk for mental health challenges after job loss are those for whom unemployment is an immediate threat to survival. People with fewer financial resources and those who perceive more financial strain from unemployment are less satisfied with their lives, according to a meta-analysis led by Frances McKee-Ryan, PhD, a professor of management at the University of Nevada, Reno ( Journal of Applied Psychology , Vol. 90, No. 1, 2005 ).

“The bottom line is people need to eat. They need to have shelter. They need to have health care,” says David Blustein, PhD, a professor of counseling, developmental and educational psychology at Boston College.

But job loss also has negative effects across the board. An influential meta-analysis by Karsten Paul, PhD, and Klaus Moser, PhD, both in the department of organizational and social psychology at the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nürnberg in Germany, found that across 237 cross-sectional and 87 longitudinal studies, unemployed people were more distressed; less satisfied with their lives, marriages and families; and more likely to report psychological problems than the employed ( Journal of Vocational Behavior , Vol. 74, No. 3, 2009 ).

The analysis found that the effect of unemployment is likely causal: In longitudinal studies, unemployed people see mental health gains when they secure new jobs. Studies on factory closures, in which everyone loses their jobs at the same time, also show that nearly all laid-off workers experience subsequent mental health declines—evidence that job loss is damaging to mental health, rather than people with poorer mental health being more likely to experience unemployment. The longer the stretch of unemployment, the worse people fare, with people out of work for six months or more experiencing the worst mental health outcomes. Countries with high wealth inequality and weak unemployment protections had worse mental health outcomes among the unemployed in Paul and Moser’s meta-analysis, a factor that puts Americans at risk. As measured by the Gini coefficient, an economic measure of inequality, the United States has the highest income inequality of any G-7 country and its unemployment protections are relatively weak. Many laid-off workers lose their job-based health insurance and have access to less-generous unemployment benefits than workers in other OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries.

Unfortunately for those who have lost their jobs during the COVID-19 crisis, there seems to be little comfort in solidarity. Wanberg, McKee-Ryan and colleagues found no evidence that losing one’s job during an employment crisis had fewer mental health ramifications. Losing one’s job due to a massive societal shock is a two-sided coin, Wanberg says. “Right now, there is so much unemployment that there is a little more camaraderie or support. But at the same time, mental health is more impacted because people don’t have an easy segue to find new jobs.”

A qualitative study by Blu­stein and his colleagues found further evidence of workers’ complex feelings when they lose their jobs. People who blamed their job loss on their own failings felt worse about themselves but remained optimistic about learning new skills and finding a new, better job. Those who saw the fingerprints of systemic issues, such as discrimination or macroeconomic forces, in their job loss viewed themselves less negatively but also felt more frustrated about their ability to change their circumstances ( Journal of Vocational Behavior , Vol. 82, No. 3, 2013 ).

In both therapy settings and advocacy work, psychologists can help destigmatize unemployment and discourage self-blame. A study of white-collar workers in the United States and Tel Aviv found that unemployed professionals in the United States tended to blame themselves for losing their jobs, while those in Israel blamed the broader system (Sharone, O., Social Forces , Vol. 91, No. 4, 2013 ).

A tendency toward less generous self-evaluations after unemployment is linked to worse mental health. Psychologists are also studying the mental health effects of underemployment. Evidence so far suggests that job insecurity and instability promote poor mental health, too, particularly if a person’s wages are low or if they are forced into temporary positions, says Blake Allan, PhD, an associate professor of counseling psychology at the University of Houston. New research on long-term job insecurity using data collected in Australia finds that when insecurity persists for four years or longer, people become less emotionally stable, less agreeable and less conscientious ( Journal of Applied Psychology , online first publication, 2020 ). These personality traits are important for both work performance and well-being, says Chia-Huei Wu, PhD, the chair in organizational psychology at Leeds University Business School in England, who co-authored the research.

“We argue that chronic job insecurity can lead to such impacts on personality change because it reinforces a negative self-reinforcing loop over time,” Wu says. For example, he says, the anxiety related to job insecurity can lead people to pay more attention to the uncertain aspects of their job and life, which in turn often distracts them from tasks that could help reduce job insecurity, so the anxiety continues.

Just how well a person copes with job loss may be determined by protective factors in their lives. McKee-Ryan, Wanberg and colleagues found in their 2005 review that unemployed workers who had social support, the ability to maintain a daily routine, who viewed work as less central to their identities and who had high hopes for reemployment responded better to job loss. Reframing job loss also appears to benefit people: Those who labeled themselves as “retired” rather than “unemployed” had increased life satisfaction, according to a study by economist Clemens Hetschko, PhD, and colleagues ( The Economic Journal , Vol. 124, No. 575, 2014 ).

“The interpretation is that the jump in life satisfaction is almost solely due to stigma, identity and changing how people treat you,” Allan explains.

Populations at risk now

The COVID-19 crisis is affecting some categories of workers more than others, researchers say. “You start looking at who is unemployed, and that is people in the service industry, and that is disproportionately women and people of color,” says Nadya Fouad, PhD, a counseling psychologist and professor of educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.

Women’s careers may also suffer if schools and child care centers do not return full time, she says, given that domestic duties and child care disproportionately fall on women. Moreover, many poor and rural Americans lack reliable broadband internet access, Van Horn says, effectively eliminating their chances of securing remote work.

Research on unemployment suggests that job loss can be particularly damaging for the health and wellness of older workers. Workers in their 50s and 60s who lose their jobs during a recession show increases in their mortality rates, possibly because the loss of health insurance is more dangerous to them than younger workers; however, losing one’s job after becoming eligible for Medicare benefits does not impact mortality (Coile, C.C., et al., American Economic Journal: Economic Policy , Vol. 6, No. 3, 2014).

The virus might also damage the careers of the youngest workers, says Saba Rasheed Ali, PhD, a vocational psychologist at the University of Iowa who conducts research with many youth whose families work in the meatpacking industry. These youth often work in the service industry, and many of those jobs have vanished.

“Those jobs may not be accessible to teenagers and certainly could be quite dangerous for them right now. So, how does that impact their career development and their résumés?” Ali asks. Meanwhile, schools may not be able to provide their usual levels of career counseling and development, she says.

And without more job training, teens and others may not glean the skills they need to secure new jobs. A meta-analytic review of job search interventions found that the most successful programs taught job seekers how to network, find appropriate openings and apply to them. The best programs also taught job seekers how to psychologically cope with rejection and how to stay motivated day in, day out ( Psychological Bulletin , Vol. 140, No. 4, 2014 ).

“Job search interventions effectively promoted employment only when both skill development and motivation enhancement were emphasized in the training program,” says Songqi Liu, PhD, an industrial and organizational psychologist at Georgia State University, who co-authored the review.

Unfortunately, few programs do this well, Liu says. One that does work is the JOBS program, developed by psychologists Richard Price, PhD, and Amiram Vinokur, PhD, of the University of Michigan, which is delivered to small groups of job seekers by trained facilitators. The program focuses on building participants’ confidence and uses discussion, role-playing and positive feedback to practice job search skills. The program has been shown to be effective internationally, with studies replicated in China, Finland and Ireland, among other nations (“ The JOBS Program: Impact on Job Seeker Motivation, Reemployment, and Mental Health,” Oxford Handbooks Online, 2014).

The program has also been shown to particularly improve reemployment and mental health in participants who are at high risk of poor mental health (Vinokur, A.D., & Price, R.H., in Vuori, J., et al. (eds.), “ Sustainable Working Lives: Aligning Perspectives on Health, Safety and Well-Being ,” Springer, Dordrecht, 2015).

In today’s pandemic, the job search is challenging for two reasons. One is that the overall economic contraction has reduced the number of new jobs available, meaning candidates face steep competition for work. A psychology-informed approach can’t help this problem, but an understanding of mental health, motivation and human behavior may be able to address the second challenge: adapting career interventions in a socially distanced way.

Although there are many online job search interventions, few are well studied, Liu says. One exception is the University of Minnesota’s Building Relationships and Improving Opportunities (BRIO) intervention , which teaches networking skills through a series of videos and online modules. In a field experiment of 491 unemployed individuals who took part in the program, Wanberg, Liu and their collaborators found that the intervention improved participants’ ability to network and their sense of self-efficacy around networking compared with a control group that did not receive the intervention ( Personnel Psychology , online first publication, 2020 ). BRIO also helped participants translate their networking efforts into tangible benefits, which led to higher employment quality, as measured by improvements in position and income.

Psychologists who work on understanding unemployment are also mobilizing to respond to the unique aspects of the pandemic. Blustein and his colleagues are beginning a qualitative study of work and uncertainty to learn more about people’s experiences as the pandemic drags on, while simultaneously collaborating with a network of psychologists, economists and employment counselors to develop interventions to protect against the mental health impacts of job loss during this crisis. These would include traditional mental health interventions as well as career-focused interventions, Blustein says. He’s also calling on psychologists to recognize the uncertainty of the pandemic and the resulting economic crisis as an existential experience of loss ( Journal of Humanistic Psychology , online first publication, 2020 ). Psychologists can help by advocating for policies shown to protect unemployed individuals’ mental health, including basic income guarantees and policies to provide housing security and health-care access, he says.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen in this COVID crisis, whereas in a recession you tend to know that eventually we’ll come out of it,” Blustein says. “That is a place where psychologists need to be engaged in the clinical work and in the public policy sector.”

It’s also important to view today’s economic crisis against the backdrop of work life prior to the pandemic, Allan says. Even before the coronavirus, work in the United States was increasingly precarious, he says, with more workers laboring at contract or gig positions, often with few protections or benefits. Those workers are often the ones who are now facing the most dangerous, uncertain working conditions—or at risk of losing their jobs altogether.

“Psychologists need to be at the table when we’re making policy decisions because we have a lot to bring to those discussions,” Allan says. “We have the data and the understanding of systemic issues, but we also have the connection to the voices of people who are experiencing this through our clinical work and through qualitative studies. We know how to change attitudes and promote more accurate narratives, and we need to do more of that.”

Work and Unemployment in the Time of COVID-19: Mental Health and Work-Based Implications APA Div. 17 (Society of Counseling Psychology), 2020

The Importance of Work in an Age of Uncertainty: The Eroding Work Experience in America Blustein, D.L., Oxford Scholarship Online, 2019

Multidisciplinary Research Priorities for the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Call for Action for Mental Health Science Holmes, E.A., et al.,  The Lancet Psychiatry , 2020

Interventions to Reduce the Impact of Unemployment and Economic Hardship on Mental Health in the General Population: A Systematic Review Moore, T.H., et al.,  Psychological Medicine , 2017

• 28% of 16- to 24-year-olds were neither enrolled in school nor working in June, according to an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by the Pew Research Center.
• 31.8 million people were drawing unemployment benefits at the end of July, according to U.S. Labor Department data.
• 70% of employed adults say the economy is a significant source of stress in their lives, according to an APA Stress in America survey conducted in May.

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Job Insecurity during an Economic Crisis: the Psychological Consequences of Widespread Corporate Cost-Cutting Announcements

• Major Empirical Contribution
• Published: 06 October 2021
• Volume 6 , pages 1–25, ( 2022 )

Cite this article

• Drake Van Egdom   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1769-0944 1 ,
• Christiane Spitzmueller 1 ,
• Xueqi Wen 2 ,
• Maryam A. Kazmi 1 ,
• Erica Baranski 3 ,
• Rhona Flin 4 &
• Ramanan Krishnamoorti 5  

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Economic crises, such as the one induced by the COVID-19 pandemic, and resulting widespread corporate cost-cutting, drastically alter the nature of work. Job insecurity represents a critical intermediate between the economic ramifications of an economic crisis and work and stress outcomes, however, the underlying cognitive consequences of job insecurity and how to buffer those effects are not well understood. We examine how corporate cost-cutting announcements indirectly relate to employees’ attention through their relationship with employee job insecurity and investigate supervisor support as a potential buffer of these relationships. We used multi-source data to test our research model, combining data on cost-cutting announcements (budget cuts, layoffs, and furloughs) in news articles for 165 organizations with survey data from 421 full-time employees from these organizations between March 26, 2020 and April 8, 2020. Cost-cutting announcements are positively related to job insecurity, which is related to employee’s attention with supervisor support mitigating the effects of job insecurity on attention. Grounded in self-regulation theories, we contribute to and extend the theoretical understanding of the organizational context for job insecurity and cognitive outcomes. We discuss the implications for organizations to manage and prepare for future economic crises, specifically on organizational communication and supervisor interventions.

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A recent airplane crash (Pakistan International Airlines, 22 May 2020) killed 97 passengers due to pilots distracted by COVID-19 concerns. Flight recorder data showed that the aircraft was mechanically sound and fit to fly. As the pilots approached the tarmac, they were discussing COVID-19 and continued their discussion even after prompts by air traffic control to focus on landing the aircraft (Shahzad, 2020 ). Although a plane crash is a rare and extreme outcome for attentional deficits, the incident signifies the importance of understanding the many ways in which a global pandemic influences attention at work. Therefore, we use this paper to examine how, when, and why concerns induced by an economic crisis (i.e., COVID-19), such as job insecurity, relate to employee attention and explore how organizations can mitigate the impact of company cost-cutting announcements and job insecurity on employee attention.

COVID-19 constitutes an unprecedented life experience, fundamentally altering the vast majority of peoples’ personal and work lives across the globe (World Health Organization, 2020 ). COVID-19 has been particularly widespread and devastating from a public health and psychological perspective. The International Monetary Fund predicts that the current outbreak will create the worst economic recession since the Great Depression (International Monetary Fund, 2020 ). More than 22 million individuals filed new jobless claims in the United States alone from March 2020 to the middle of April 2020 with new jobless claims in July 2021 starting to fall back down to levels last seen in March 2020 (Department of Labor, 2021 ). Job loss puts individuals at risk for adverse health consequences, including increased mortality (Roelfs et al., 2011 ; Strully, 2009 ). Individuals and employees alike do not know how long the pandemic will persist, have no control over future outbreaks, and have no way to anticipate the long-lasting effects COVID-19 will have on work (Fouad, 2020 ). For those who were able to retain jobs during this economic crisis, awareness of company cost-cutting and job insecurity are widespread with likely deleterious consequences for work outcomes and employee health (de Jong et al., 2016 ; Jiang & Lavaysse, 2018 ; Keim et al., 2014 ; Schumacher et al., 2020 ).

Job insecurity is defined as “a perceived threat to the continuity and stability of employment as it is currently experienced” (Shoss, 2017 , p. 1914). Job insecurity directs employees’ cognitive and affective reactions to possible job loss and its consequences. As a result, job insecurity results in adverse emotional responses, such as anger and anxiety (Reisel et al., 2010; Sverke et al., 2002 ), in addition to effects on general well-being (De Witte et al., 2016 ; Sverke et al., 2002 ; Van der Elst et al., 2014 ). Prior research has incorporated organization-level events to study their effects on job insecurity and outcomes (e.g., bankruptcy; Mohr, 2000 ; mergers; Lam et al., 2015 ; van Dick et al., 2006 ). The current study extends this growing literature by examining potential mechanisms for mitigating job insecurity’s negative effects on attention during a widespread economic crisis in 2020 affecting numerous organizations.

From a theoretical perspective, self-regulation theories provide a useful framework for understanding this phenomenon. One of the central tenets of these theories is that stress and rumination can result in an insufficient ability to regulate attention and reduce the ability of individuals to pay attention to their work tasks (Beal et al., 2005 ). In the current study, job insecurity is conceptualized as worrying about one’s job and the future of one’s career. The widespread cost-cutting announcements stemming from the COVID-19 induced economic crisis likely exacerbates the rumination and stress resulting from job insecurity. In sum, the current study draws on self-regulation theories, such that employees may have an even harder time focusing on their job tasks if the stress and rumination stemming from job insecurity takes their attention away from their work. Given the critical role of cognition for efficient and safe task execution (Sneddon et al., 2013 ; Sundfør et al., 2019 ; Wallace & Chen, 2005 ), the limited focus on attention in the job insecurity literature represents a critical research gap. Hence, we use self-regulation theories as a foundation for exploring whether widespread company cost-cutting and consequent job insecurity during the pandemic is linked to attention as proposed by self-regulation theories (Beal et al., 2005 ).

We contribute to the understanding of job insecurity and attention by addressing two knowledge gaps. First, we examine job insecurity from employees in numerous organizations in an industry hit hard by an economic crisis, whereas most research examines the effects of events on job insecurity at a single organization (e.g., Mohr, 2000 ). Economic crises occur frequently around the world (e.g., Great Recession of 2007–2009). Our study examines how these events can impact employees in a multitude of organizations within the same industry. We expect that employees’ job insecurity and outcomes will be worse during an economic crisis as they have fewer options if they are laid off. Moreover, our paper heeds a recent call from occupational health experts to study how supervisors can support workers at a time of economic stress (Sinclair et al., 2020 ). Second, we extend self-regulation theories (Beal et al., 2005 ) to demonstrate how societal and organizational events shape employee perceptions of job insecurity and attention. Hence, this study expands the criterion space for job insecurity by examining its relation to cognitive mechanisms, specifically attention.

The remainder of the introduction is structured as follows. We introduce the implications of organization-level events for job insecurity. Next, we discuss self-regulation theories to understand the relationships of environmental change, job insecurity, and attention. Last, we examine perceived supervisor support as a buffer that can potentially protect individuals from the negative effects of company cost-cutting announcements and job insecurity.

Organizational Cost-Cutting Announcements

Throughout the COVID-19 economic crisis, organizations have engaged in extensive cost-cutting measures. We define these cost-cutting measures as organizations reducing their spending, including budget cuts, furloughs, and layoffs. COVID-19 induced unemployment has continued throughout the pandemic as control of the virus is still far removed in many countries. In some hard-hit industries (e.g., oil and gas), employees may be concerned about losing their jobs as they may not easily find employment if alternate employers are also cutting costs. Within self-regulation theories (Beal et al., 2005 ), these cost-cutting announcements represent an event that may elicit job insecurity related stress and rumination.

Widespread cost-cutting during an economic crisis represents a very strong situation, such that the event is disruptive and critical. The backdrop of COVID-19 highlights the relevance of organizational cost cutting, especially for industries driven by consumer demand (e.g., oil prices). Further, COVID-19 has disrupted the global economy with organizations having to adjust their entire operations to ensure their workforce’s safety and the long-term profitability of their organization. The remaining employees of an organization that announces cost-cutting initiatives must change their work and procedures to alleviate the loss of financial resources and human capital.

Keim et al.’s ( 2014 ) meta-analytic work shows organizational change, such as downsizing and layoffs, has a modest, positive relationship with job insecurity. Self-regulation theories provide a useful framework for understanding this relationship. Cost-cutting announcements likely increase an employee’s thoughts on the stability of their employment, which are represented as off-task attentional demands in self-regulation theories (Beal et al., 2005 ). As COVID-19 has forced whole industries to enact cost-cutting measures, these events have grown more common. In the current study, employees in organizations cutting costs will likely view their current employment as more threatened.

Hypothesis 1: Company cost-cutting announcements, including layoffs, furloughs, and budget cuts, will be positively related to job insecurity.

Job Insecurity and Attention

The experience of job insecurity is associated with cognitive reactions, such as worrying about precarious employment and financial responsibilities and pondering future career prospects. However, the literature on the cognitive mechanisms of job insecurity is incomplete as they are not fully specified in the literature. Essentially, job insecurity is related to safety outcomes (Jiang & Lavaysse, 2018 ) and attention is related to safety outcomes (Jin et al., 2021 ; Sneddon et al., 2013 ; Sundfør et al., 2019 ; Wallace & Chen, 2005 ; Wallace & Vodanovich, 2003 ); however, limited prior research has focused on how job insecurity is related to attention. Attention represents a critical cognitive piece. We define attention as, “a state in which cognitive resources are focused on certain aspects of the environment rather than on others” (APA, n.d. ). The current study uses attention as an outcome due to its importance and centrality as a cognitive mechanism in work tasks.

As self-regulation theories suggest, job insecurity represents a threat to an employee’s expectations for future employment, which triggers stress and rumination that may enhance or reduce employee attention. Conflicting motivations may play a part in job insecurity affecting attention (Cheng & Chan, 2008 ; Shoss, 2017 ; Sverke & Hellgren, 2002 ). Job insecurity could motivate individuals to focus on their work tasks to show supervisors that they deserve to stay in the company. Conversely, job insecurity could trigger thoughts of future career prospects or financial insecurity, limiting their ability to attend to work tasks. Although theoretical arguments can be made that job insecurity either improves or impairs attention, meta-analyses present enough evidence that job insecurity impedes work performance and safety (Cheng & Chan, 2008 ; Jiang & Lavaysse, 2018 ). Employees likely cannot focus on their work tasks as they ruminate about their job being threatened. As a result, we align our hypothesis on the effect of job insecurity on attention with self-regulation theory and empirical evidence. An individual facing a threat to their employment will have less attention for changes in their environment as they will be ruminating about their employment situation. As self-regulation theories suggest, we hypothesize that job insecurity will reduce attention.

Hypothesis 2: Job insecurity will be negatively related to attention.

Furthermore, we expect cost-cutting announcements to indirectly relate to attention through job insecurity. Cost-cutting announcements represent a distal event, and job insecurity is a more proximal effect on attention. As self-regulation theory suggests, cost-cutting announcements will likely trigger an individual to perceive their job as threatened (i.e., job insecurity), which increases their off-task attentional demands and reducing their ability to attend to work tasks. In sum, we expect job insecurity to mediate the relationship between company cost-cutting announcements and attention.

Hypothesis 3: Company cost-cutting announcements will be indirectly related to attention through job insecurity.

Supervisor Support as a Buffer

The current COVID-19 economic crisis and mass cost-cutting announcements force employees to simultaneously adapt to work changes and increased job insecurity. Due to the serious implications of attention for work and health outcomes (Jiang & Lavaysse, 2018 ), mitigation strategies are necessary. Supervisors represent one of the most critical features in an individual’s work environment due to their control over important resources and personnel-related decision-making authority. Perceived supervisor support is defined as an employee’s evaluation of how much their supervisor values them and cares about their well-being (Eisenberger et al., 2002 ). During an economic crisis, the role of supervisors is even more critical due to their function as a gatekeeper to organizational resources, reducing their team’s stress, and improving their employee’s work outcomes (Sinclair et al., 2020 ). A supervisor could schedule weekly check-in meetings to ensure their employees’ well-being, or they could be flexible with when and how employees complete their work. Within the self-regulation theoretical framework, supervisors may influence the extent to which an event creates job insecurity related rumination and how much that rumination pulls the employee’s attention away from work-related tasks. As a result, perceived supervisor support provides one potential mechanism for mitigating the effects of cost-cutting announcements during an economic crisis.

Social support, especially supervisory support, has been theorized as an important moderator of the relationship between job insecurity and its outcomes (Lee et al., 2018 ). Social support has exhibited a main effect on job insecurity (Jiang & Lavaysse, 2018 ) and is a moderator between job insecurity and job performance (Schreurs et al., 2012 ) and a moderator between occupational injury and job insecurity (Lawrence et al., 2013 ). The current study aligns with Lee et al.’s ( 2018 ) theoretical model to examine perceived supervisor support as both a buffer of cost-cutting announcements on job insecurity and job insecurity on attention. After organizations announce cost-cutting announcements, supervisors may help employees interpret the event as less of a threat to their employment. For example, the supervisor can specifically reassure them that their job is not in jeopardy and the cost-cutting announcement does not pertain to them. If employees still perceive the event as a threat, supportive supervisors can mitigate the effects on attention by helping employees pay attention to their job tasks and ruminate less. As an example, the supervisor could have more task-specific conversations to encourage them to focus.

Further, the indirect effect of cost-cutting announcements on attention through job insecurity will depend on perceived supervisor support due to supervisors representing an integral piece of an employee’s work environment. Supervisors are present both during and after cost-cutting announcements, which allows them to influence the employee’s processing of these changes and ensuring job insecurity perceptions do not impact their work.

Hypothesis 4a. Perceived supervisor support will moderate the relationship between company cost-cutting announcements and job insecurity, such that the relationship will be stronger when perceived supervisor support is low.

Hypothesis 4b. Perceived supervisor support will moderate the relationship between job insecurity and attention, such that the relationship will be stronger when perceived supervisor support is low.

Hypothesis 4c. Perceived supervisor support will moderate the indirect effect of company cost-cutting announcements on attention through job insecurity with perceived supervisor support moderating both the effect of company cost-cutting on job insecurity and job insecurity on attention, such that the indirect effect will be stronger when perceived supervisor support is low.

Sample and Data Collection Procedures

In partnership with two industry associations, we gathered data from a broad cross-section of workers in the USA employed in the energy sector, resulting in responses from 421 full-time employees from 165 organizations. Data collection was approved by the University of Houston’s Institutional Review Board (IRB #: 02229). Participants from industry association A filled out the survey from March 30, 2020 to April 8, 2020, with 96.2% filling out the survey from March 30, 2020 to April 1, 2020. Industry association B filled out the survey from March 26, 2020 to April 7, 2020 with much more variability in the days they filled out the survey (e.g., March 26, 2020 to March 28, 2020 = 43.8%, March 30, 2020 to April 1, 2020 = 40.0%, and April 7, 2020 = 8.1%). We did not expect survey data quality to differ for those filling out the survey early than those who needed reminders and filled out the survey later (Ingels, 2020 ).

The organizations and employees represent a wide range of sub-sectors involved in producing and selling energy with organizations varying widely in size. The two industry associations sent email invitations to their members and requested they complete an anonymous survey. Participants entered raffle drawings for 10 $100 Amazon gift cards. The current data is part of a broader study on the outlook of the energy industry in response to COVID-19. To ensure the sampling method did not affect our results, we included control variables detailed below and utilized Unconstrained Product Indicator analysis due to potential non-normality in the distribution (Marsh et al., 2007 ). The Mplus code can be found in Appendix 1 .

Participant Demographics

A majority of the participants identified as white (65%) and as women (64%). On average, participants had worked 15.7 years in the energy industry and were 43 years old. 40% of participants worked for companies where cost-cutting initiatives had been announced in the news across 35 different companies. Sample job titles of participants included mechanical engineer, process engineer, and health and safety specialist.

The survey content was developed in partnership with industry associations and measures for this paper, which were embedded in a more extensive survey to meet industry partner associations’ information needs and our study’s needs. Given total survey length restrictions, we adapted validated scales using Stanton et al.’s ( 2002 ) guidelines. As discussed in Heggestad et al.’s ( 2019 ) review of scale adaptation practices, we focused on retaining critical scale features. Specifically, we focused on maintaining content validity by ensuring all aspects of construct definitions were addressed through the items used. We pilot-tested the instrument with employees of our industry association partners and further adapted items based on feedback. Measures were adapted to make them specific to this economic crisis context by including phrases such as ‘... during COVID-19’. Unless otherwise indicated, participants responded to items using a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). Participants took an average of 8–10 min to complete the survey.

Job Insecurity Measure and Validation Study

We adapted Van der Elst et al.’ ( 2014 ) short job insecurity scale to the COVID-19 context, and we use one of their items and modify the other two based on our industry partners’ input to reflect cognitive and affective job insecurity (Jiang & Lavaysse, 2018 ). The final items used were “I feel insecure about the future of my job because of COVID19,” “I expect significant changes in my employment situation in the next six months due to COVID-19,” and “I am worried about paying my mortgage and other necessities during the next year.”

To ensure the adapted job insecurity scale was reliable and valid, we surveyed and conducted supplemental analyses on a separate sample of energy industry employees ( N  = 299) from April 27, 2020 to May 7, 2020. We used the above three-item job insecurity scale in this study and examined three additional non-adapted job insecurity items from Van der Elst et al.’s ( 2014 ) scale: “Chances are I will soon lose my job,” “I think I might lose my job in the near future,” and reverse-coded “I am sure I can keep my job.” Then, we created two scales: one scale had the three items adapted for the industry associations and the second scale had only the three items from Van der Elst et al. ( 2014 ). To examine the three-item adapted scale’s reliability and validity, we conducted three analyses: reliability analyses, correlated the two scales, and correlated job insecurity with attention. The three-item scale ( α  = .70) adapted for the industry associations and scale with three items from Van der Elst et al. (2014;  α  = .87) were both reliable, and the two scales were strongly correlated ( r  = .72). These two analyses indicate that the adapted three-item adapted scale is reliable and closely related to the non-adapted items. Further, the correlation between the adapted three-item scale and attention ( r  = .32) and the Van der Elst et al. ( 2014 ) items and attention ( r  = .23) are highly similar, which provides evidence that the three-item scale exhibits similar criterion validity to the six-item scale for attention.

Company Cost-Cutting Announcement

Cost-cutting was measured using independent news reports about cost-cutting announced by participants’ respective employers. To ensure participant confidentiality and cooperation and to use researcher-coded cost-cutting indicators rather than self-reports, we did not ask participants for their company’s cost-cutting practices. For each company, graduate and undergraduate student research assistants served as raters, and raters calibrated ratings to achieve consistency in coding through discussions. They conducted Google searches and coded for the announcement of budget cuts, layoffs, or furloughs. We compared the date of the media article and the date the respondent took the survey. We only coded that the participants were exposed to a cost-cutting announcement if the respondent completed the survey after the date of the media article. To ensure the company cost-cutting was due to COVID-19, we only searched for public news releases from March 1, 2020 to April 8, 2020 as the pandemic was increasing in strength. The variable was coded as binary as yes (1) or no (0) if any cost-cutting announcement (budget cuts, layoffs, or furloughs) occurred before the participant completed the survey or if the company did not have a cost-cutting announcement. First, five raters were trained on the protocol and all five rated nine companies with 83% accuracy. Then, the rest of the companies were split between the five raters and a final rater went through each coded news article to ensure reliability.

Perceived Supervisor Support

Perceived supervisor support was measured with three items ( α  = .91; Eisenberger et al., 2002 ). The three items were: “My supervisor cares about my opinion,” “My supervisor really cares about my well-being,” and “My supervisor strongly considers my goals and values.”

We adapted three items ( α  = .81) from the attentional component of a work situation awareness scale (Sneddon et al., 2013 ) to be COVID-19 specific. The three items on attentional failures are: “ Since the COVID-19 outbreak started, I often have difficulty paying close attention to details, which results in careless errors,” “ Since the COVID19 outbreak started, I often find myself speaking or acting without thinking,” and “Since the COVID19 outbreak started, when I finish reading or being told instructions, I often have to re-read them or ask for them to be repeated as I don’t remember them.” The three items were reverse-coded to represent attention and ease interpretability.

Demographic Covariates

We determined our selection of covariates based on theoretical relevance and past research (Bernerth & Aguinis, 2016 ). We included self-reported gender (0 = man, 1 = woman), partner (yes/no), the number of hours partner worked per week, and the number of children, as these variables were likely to covary with the variables of interest. Keim et al. ( 2014 ) note inconsistent findings in the literature with gender, so we include gender as a covariate to account for these potential differences. Employees with partners, especially partners working more hours, may experience fewer consequences of cost-cutting as their partners contribute to their family’s income. Similarly, employees with children and more children may experience worse consequences with cost-cutting announcements as they have more financial commitments. We also included company size and sample source. Company size was manually coded using public information available online about the respondents’ companies. The U.S. Department of Labor requires larger organizations to announce cost-cutting through the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) of 1988 (29 USC 2100 et. seq.), “Protects workers, their families and communities by requiring most employers with 100 or more employees to provide notification 60 calendar days in advance of plant closings and mass layoffs.” Our survey was distributed through two industry associations, so including the source and company size allowed us to account for any systematic differences across the companies and two samples.

Measurement Model

Table  1 presents descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations. We used full information maximum likelihood (FIML) estimation throughout to deal with missing data given its superior performance to alternatives (e.g., listwise deletion; Enders & Bandalos, 2001 ) and missing data guidelines (Newman, 2014 ) suggest using all available data. Prior to testing our hypotheses, we performed a series of confirmatory factor analyses at the individual level to test the measurement model specifying job insecurity, perceived supervisor support, and attention.

The three-factor model provided good fit (χ 2  = 38.11, df  = 24, p  < .05; CFI  = .99, TLI  = .99, RMSEA  = .04, SRMR  = .03) and fit the data better than the best-fitting two-factor model (χ 2  = 436.79, df  = 26, p  < .001; CFI  = .79, TLI  = .70, RMSEA  = .20, SRMR  = .13), and a one-factor model (χ 2  = 1259.71, df  = 27, p  < .001; CFI  = .26, TLI  = .14, RMSEA  = .33, SRMR  = .21; see Table  2 ).

Hypothesis Testing

We used the Unconstrained Product Indicator (UPI; Marsh et al., 2007 ) approach with Mplus 8.0 (Muthén & Muthén, 2017 ) to test the hypothesized moderated mediation model. In our study, cost-cutting announcements is a binary variable and two of the three perceived supervisor support indicators are negatively skewed and positively kurtotic (skewness = − 1.44 and − 1.49, respectively; kurtosis = 1.79 and 1.96, respectively). In this case, the normality of the indicators cannot be assumed. In contrast, the UPI approach does not impose any constraints based on the normality assumption (Marsh et al., 2004 ). As such, the UPI approach is more appropriate to use and can provide less biased results in our study (Marsh et al., 2004 ). Because we are dealing with latent variables, we utilized the UPI approach to create indicators for the interaction terms (Marsh et al., 2004 ).

Following the steps recommended by Marsh et al. ( 2007 ), we first centered company cost-cutting announcements, the indicators of job insecurity, and the indicators of perceived supervisor support by their grand means. Next, utilizing the matched pair strategy, we created the product indicators for the interaction of company cost-cutting announcement with perceived supervisor support and interaction of job insecurity with perceived supervisor support (Marsh et al., 2004 ). In specific, the indicators of company cost-cutting announcement/job insecurity were paired and multiplied with the indicators of perceived supervisor support based on their reliabilities. Also, each of the indicators was used only once when forming the product indicators of the latent interaction factors (Marsh et al., 2004 ). More detailed information on our use of the matched pair strategy can be found in Appendix 2 .

As compared to other latent variable interaction modeling approaches, such as Latent Moderated Structural Equations (LMS; Klein & Moosbrugger, 2000 ) and Constrained Product Indicator (CPI; Jӧreskog & Yang, 1996 ), the UPI approach provides more reliable latent interaction estimates when the assumption of normality is violated (Cham et al., 2012 ). Considering that the participants came from different organizations and the focus of the current study is how company cost-cutting may affect individual employees, we used “Type = Complex” syntax in Mplus that adjusted standard errors using a sandwich estimator to account for the nested nature of the data (Muthén & Muthén, 2017 ). Finally, Monte Carlo resampling method was used to estimate the indirect effect and the conditional indirect effects (Preacher & Selig, 2012 ).

To assess the main effects and indirect effect, we first tested a mediation model where perceived supervisor support was not included as a moderator. The indirect effects are reported in Table  3 . The model provides a good model fit (χ2 (36) = 52.86, p  < .05; CFI  = .98, TLI  = .97, RMSEA  = .03, SRMR  = .03). Consistent with hypothesis 1, company cost-cutting announcements is significantly associated with job insecurity ( b  = .30, SE  = .14, p  < .05). Hypothesis 2 is that job insecurity is negatively associated with attention, which is supported ( b  = −.24, SE  = .03, p  < .001). Hypothesis 3 proposed that company cost-cutting announcements are associated with attention indirectly through job insecurity. To estimate the indirect effect, we adopted the parametric bootstrapping approach using an R-web utility developed by Selig and Preacher ( 2009 ) to yield asymmetric confidence intervals (CIs). The 20,000-repetition Monte Carlo tests indicated that job insecurity mediated the relationship of company cost-cutting announcements with attention ( Unstandardized Indirect Effect  = −.07, 95% CI [−.12, −.004]). Hypothesis 3 is supported.

Next, we ran the moderated mediation model to assess the moderating effects and conditional indirect effects. The model provided a good fit to the data (χ2 (116) = 186.85, p  < .001; CFI  = .97, TLI  = .95, RMSEA  = .04, SRMR  = .04). Figure  1 presents the SEM results for all the model paths. Hypothesis 4a stated that perceived supervisor support moderates the relationship between company cost-cutting announcements and job insecurity, such that the relationships are stronger when perceived supervisor support is low. However, perceived supervisor support does not moderate the relationship between company cost-cutting announcements and job insecurity ( b  = .02, SE  = .04, ns ). Hypothesis 4a is not supported.

The Moderated Mediation Model

Hypothesis 4b stated that perceived supervisor support moderates the relationship between job insecurity and attention, such that the relationships are stronger when perceived supervisor support is low. Figure  2 presents the simple slopes of the relationships of job insecurity with attention. Perceived supervisor support moderates the relationships between job insecurity and attention ( b  = −.15, SE  = .07, p  < .05). The relationships of job insecurity with attention are stronger at higher levels of perceived supervisor support ( b  = −.36, SE  = .07, p  < .001) than at lower levels of perceived supervisor support ( b  = −.07, SE  = .09, ns ). Hypothesis 4b is not supported as the interaction effect is not in the hypothesized direction. Perceived supervisor support only resulted in improved attention when job insecurity was lower.

The moderation effect of perceived supervisor support (PSS) on the relationship between job insecurity and attention

Hypothesis 4c proposed that the conditional indirect effect of company cost-cutting announcements on attention via job insecurity will be stronger when perceived supervisor support is low. The conditional indirect effects are reported in Table  4 . Hypothesis 4c is not supported as the effects are in the opposite direction with higher values of perceived supervisor support resulting in stronger indirect effects.

Although the findings seem to be inconsistent with Hypotheses 4b and 4c, the results suggest that attention levels are generally higher when perceived supervisor support is high compared to when supervisor support is low. Moreover, at low job insecurity, high levels of supervisor support largely enhance attention, indicating the potential benefits of perceived supervisor support for employees low in job insecurity.

Lastly, some of the covariates were significant in Table 4 . Women had lower attention ( b  = −.38, SE  = .10, p  < .001), those with partners had higher attention ( b  = .21, SE  = .09, p  < .05), and attention decreased with the number of children ( b  = −.18, SE  = .04, p  < .001). COVID-19 and the forced transition to remote work may explain these effects as their work and family boundaries are blurred. On average, women take on more of the childcare and household labor, including cognitive labor (Daminger, 2019 ; Lachance-Grzela & Bouchard, 2010 ). This lopsided division of labor may distract them more than men, along with more children adding more distractions. Employees with a partner may be able to better balance their work and family responsibilities, allowing them to pay more attention at work. The source covariate is also significant for job insecurity ( b  = −.30, SE  = .15, p  < .05) and attention ( b  = −.23, SE  = .10, p  < .05). The sample characteristics of each source may explain some of these effects as one of the industry associations had a much higher sample of women and the employee’s partners worked more hours.

The uncertainty from cost-cutting during an economic crisis emphasizes that more research is needed to illuminate how employees interpret widespread organizational events and how these events affect employee cognitive outcomes, such as attention. Past studies focused on individual organizations undergoing bankruptcy (e.g., Mohr, 2000 ) or mergers (e.g., Lam et al., 2015 ; van Dick et al., 2006 ), however economic crises occur at a more macro scale and impact a multitude of organizations. The impact of job insecurity on cognitive processes are not as well-understood with the current study contributing to filling this gap. Drawing on self-regulation theories, we explored cost-cutting announcements’ indirect effect and job insecurity’s direct effect on attention. We further examined perceived supervisor support as a potential mechanism for buffering the effects of cost-cutting on job insecurity and job insecurity on attention.

In the current study, we hypothesized that cost-cutting announcements during an economic crisis would lead to employees interpreting their employment situation as threatened and experience job insecurity. In line with Hypothesis 1, cost-cutting announcements increase job insecurity, which extends previous findings by examining an industry hard hit by an economic crisis. Second, we expected job insecurity to decrease attention based on self-regulation theories (Beal et al., 2005 ). Job insecurity likely triggers off-task attentional demands that make paying attention at work harder for employees. Hypothesis 2 was supported with job insecurity being negatively related to attention, which indicates that job insecurity may impact attention. Our Hypothesis 3 extends the first two hypotheses by testing the indirect effect of cost-cutting announcements on attention through their perceptions of their job being threatened. This expectation was supported, which indicates that cost-cutting announcements affect the attention of remaining employees via their job insecurity. This finding supports self-regulation theories by showing that cost-cutting announcements elicit off-task attentional demands that impact attention.

We extend prior research (Lawrence et al., 2013 ; Schreurs et al., 2012 ) showing supervisors represent important features of an employee’s environment. For Hypothesis 4a, we anticipated that higher perceived supervisor support would strengthen the relationship between cost-cutting announcements and job insecurity, however this moderation effect of supervisor support on job insecurity and attention was not supported. Instead, perceived supervisor support directly reduced job insecurity regardless of the organization’s cost-cutting announcements, indicating that supervisors may be generally important for reducing job insecurity. Hypothesis 4b proposed lower perceived supervisor support as strengthening the relationship between job insecurity and attention. This hypothesis was not supported; job insecurity during an economic crisis may be too strong to be alleviated by general supervisor support. Individuals low on job insecurity had increased attention when supervisors supported them. Supervisor support may be less effective for employees with high job insecurity due to highly dissonant information. The organization signals that the individual’s employment is threatened, yet the supervisor continues to be supportive. Thus, inconsistent messaging may limit the employees’ ability to attend to their work environment. Essentially, perceived supportive supervision can only improve employee’s attention if the employee is not preoccupied with the instability and uncertainty of their job.

Lastly, we expected perceived supervisor support to moderate the indirect effect of cost-cutting announcements on attention via job insecurity (Hypothesis 4c). This effect was not supported for the above reason that job insecurity during an economic crisis may be too strong for the supervisor’s general support to be effective. In summation, these results extend the job insecurity literature and self-regulation theories by showing that cost-cutting announcements during an economic crisis affect employee attention through their job insecurity. Additionally, general supervisor support may not be enough to mitigate the attention-pulling effects of cost-cutting during an economic crisis.

Practical Implications

Our findings point to two key practical implications for organizations during the COVID-19 economic crisis and in future economic crises. First, organizations can help employees in the sensemaking process to interpret their employment situation as secure. When organizations announce cost-cutting measures, employees will be more likely to interpret their current job as threatened, resulting in reduced attention and likely worse work and health outcomes (e.g., de Jong et al., 2016 ; Jiang & Lavaysse, 2018 ). Potential solutions include providing effective organizational communication with an emphasis on transparency with employees about the reasons behind the cost-cutting (Keim et al., 2014 ). Our study did not find perceived supervisor support to be effective in increasing attention when job insecurity is high. Employees may be particularly affected by the widespread economic crisis, such that general supervisor support may not ease their concerns. Although this finding is unexpected, future research could focus on more domain-specific supervisor support and trainings. For example, family supportive supervisor behavior training (Odle-Dusseau et al., 2016 ) and supervisor mental health training (Dimoff & Kelloway, 2019 ) provide evidence for domain-specific supervisor training to impact outcomes and general frameworks for future interventions that specifically target attention. Second, organizations need to be prepared to mitigate the potential impact of reduced attention to ensure the best outcomes for their employees and the organization. One potential mechanism would be an online employee workplace mindfulness intervention, which could help minimize job insecurity related rumination (Aikens et al., 2014 ).

Limitations and Future Directions

Despite our study’s contributions, several study limitations should be addressed in subsequent research. First, our entire sample was drawn from the energy industry, which includes employees from 165 different companies in an essential industry hit hard by cost-cutting initiatives. Future research is needed to better understand other industries hit hard by the pandemic (e.g., retail) that provide workers with lower wages than energy industry jobs and make them vulnerable to the consequences of job loss. Although the data was collected from multiple organizations, the average cluster size is 2.51, which may not be sufficient for a multilevel analysis. Further, the ICC[1] of attention is .01, which suggests that attention may not be aggregated at the between-level. Taken together, it may not be appropriate for our study to estimate the effects at the organizational level. Future research should obtain a larger sample size from each organization to identify firm-level contextual variables.

Second, our data were obtained in partnership with industry associations, which limited our ability to use full-length measures. We conducted a supplementary analysis for job insecurity using a separate sample to replicate the reliability and validity compared to a full scale. Consistent with Heggestad et al. ( 2019 ) recommendations, we recommend our findings be replicated and extended using the full-length scales. A strength of the study was our ability to obtain rapid access to respondents during a two-week timeframe as COVID-19 cases were quickly increasing, large numbers of employers were cutting costs, and obtain researcher-coded data on cost-cutting initiatives in 165 organizations. Future research should include self-report data on employee awareness of company cost-cutting practices to provide additional evidence for coding news reports.

Third, our study did not include all possible cognitive mechanisms and focused only on attention. Future research is needed to better understand how other cognitive components are important for task execution (e.g., working memory and decision making) are affected. The nomological network of attention needs to be clarified as attention is a narrower component or precursor of similar constructs, such as cognitive functioning (Fisher et al., 2019 ) and self-regulation failure (Baumeister & Heatherton, 1996 ). Fourth, we did not distinguish between quantitative job insecurity (i.e., job loss) and qualitative job insecurity (i.e., losing features of the job). Given previous research on the importance of distinguishing between the two dimensions (e.g., Jiang & Lavaysse, 2018 ), future research should include both to delineate any potential differential effects on attention. Lastly, several of the relationships we tested were cross-sectional, limiting causal inference. However, the detection of interactions is not affected by the cross-sectional nature of the data and may even be harder to detect in cross-sectional data (Siemsen et al., 2010 ), strengthening our finding of supervisor support as a buffer between job insecurity and attention. Previous research has identified the quality of the leader-member relationship as important for job insecurity (e.g., Wang et al., 2019 ), which may also impact the efficacy of supervisor support for reducing job insecurity and should be incorporated in future research examining economic crises.

We add to the literature on work risks during economic crises by examining the role of widespread organizational cost-cutting announcements in job insecurity and suggesting supervisor support as a mechanism that organizations can use to mitigate job insecurity’s effect on attention. In sum, this paper provides early findings that contribute to our understanding of the changing nature of work during the COVID-19 economic crisis and identifying supervisor support that may help mitigate risks caused by large numbers of employers using cost-cutting measures in the current pandemic and in future economic crises.

Data Availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.

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Acknowledgments

Support for this project was provided by UH Energy, Pink Petro, PESA,

IPAA, and the Gulf Research Program.

Code availability

The Mplus code can be found in Appendix 1 .

This project in part contributes to the research goals of a larger project funded by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s Gulf Research Program (Grant #: 20001182).

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Department of Psychology, University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA

Drake Van Egdom,  Christiane Spitzmueller & Maryam A. Kazmi

The Advanced Institute of Business, Tongji University, Shanghai, China

Department of Psychology, California State University-East Bay, Hayward, CA, USA

Erica Baranski

Aberdeen Business School, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA

Ramanan Krishnamoorti

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Appendix 1. Mplus Code

USEVARIABLES ARE

JIS1 JIS2 JIS3

PSS1 PSS2 PSS3

NumChi PHOUR CSIZE

Female Relation

Int_J1 Int_J2 Int_J3

SiAw1 SiAw2 SiAw3;

CLUSTER IS OrgID;

Center ACE PSS1 PSS2 PSS3 JIS1 JIS2 JIS3 (GRANDMEAN);

Int_A1 = ACE * PSS1; !create the interaction indicators

Int_J1 = PSS1 * JIS2; !create the interaction indicators

Int_J2 = PSS2 * JIS1; !create the interaction indicators

Int_J3 = PSS3 * JIS3; !create the interaction indicators

SiAw1 = 8 - SiAw1r;

SiAw2 = 8 - SiAw2r;

SiAw3 = 8 - SiAw3r;

TYPE IS Complex;

Estimator = MLR;

Iteration = 10000;

!Measurement Model

JIS by JIS1 JIS2 JIS3;

PSS by PSS1 PSS2 PSS3;

SAW by SiAw1 SiAw2 SiAw3;

Int_A by Int_A1; !measurement model for interaction factor

Int_J by Int_J1 Int_J2 Int_J3; !measurement model for interaction factor

!Structural Model

JIS on ACE (a1);

JIS on Int_A (a2);

JIS on PSS;

JIS on NumChi PHOUR

Female Relation Source CSIZE;

SAW on ACE;

SAW on JIS (b1);

SAW on PSS (b2);

SAW on Int_J (b3);

SAW on NumChi PHOUR

!Covariances

ACE with CSIZE

NumChi PHOUR

Female Relation Source;

CSIZE with PSS NumChi PHOUR

NumChi with PSS PHOUR

PHOUR with PSS

PSS with Female Relation Source;

Female with Relation Source;

Relation with Source;

PSS with ACE (COV1);

JIS with PSS (COV2);

!Factor Variances

Int_A (Var1); !Interaction variance

Int_J (Var2); !Interaction variance

MODEL CONSTRAINT:

NEW(LOW_PSS MED_PSS HIGH_PSS

ALOWS AMEDS AHIVS

BLOWS BMEDS BHIVS

INDL INDM INDH);

LOW_PSS = −1;

MED_PSS = 0;

HIGH_PSS = 1;

ALOWS = a1 + a2*LOW_PSS;

AMEDS = a1 + a2*MED_PSS;

AHIVS = a1 + a2*HIGH_PSS;

BLOWS = b1 + b3*LOW_PSS;

BMEDS = b1 + b3*MED_PSS;

BHIVS = b1 + b3*HIGH_PSS;

INDL = (a1 + a2*LOW_PSS)*(b1 + b3*LOW_PSS); !Estimate conditional indirect effects

INDM = (a1 + a2*MED_PSS)*(b1 + b3*MED_PSS); !Estimate conditional indirect effects

INDH = (a1 + a2*HIGH_PSS)*(b1 + b3*HIGH_PSS); !Estimate conditional indirect effects

VAR1 = 1 + COV1**2; !Constraint to scale interaction factor

VAR2 = 1 + COV2**2; !Constraint to scale interaction factor

OUTPUT: STANDARDIZED CINTERVAL TECH1 TECH3;

Appendix 2. Matched Pair Strategy

Marsh et al. ( 2004 ) suggested that when forming the indicators of the latent variable interaction factors, 1) each of the multiple indicators of the independent variables should be used only once; and 2) all of the multiple indicators of the independent variables should be used. Given that cost-cutting only has one indicator, we used the indicator of supervisor support with the highest loading to meet the first recommendation from Marsh et al. ( 2004 ). However, this could violate the second recommendation.

As such, we tested the model where the indicator of cost cutting was multiplied with each of the three indicators of the perceived supervisor support scale to create three indicators of the latent interaction factor. We got very similar results. Specifically, we found cost-cutting was significantly related to job insecurity ( b  = .28, SE  = .14, p  = .044). Also, perceived supervisor support moderated the relationship between job insecurity and attention ( b  = −.15, SE  = .07, p  = .036) but not the relationship between cost-cutting and job insecurity ( b  = .11, SE  = .18, ns ).

Moreover, Marsh et al. ( 2004 ) noted that there are many situations where their two recommendations may not be easily incorporated. They compared different matching strategies including the one-pair strategy, which is the strategy we adopted in the manuscript for the interaction between cost-cutting and supervisor support. They reported that the results of different matching strategies did not make much difference unless there were substantial differences between the factor loadings for different items on the same factor and the sample size is small (Marsh et al., 2004 , p. 296). Since we have a large sample size and the factor loadings of the three perceived supervisor support items are similar to one another (.88, .90, .92, respectively), the results produced with using this one-pair strategy should be reliable.

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Van Egdom, D., Spitzmueller, ., Wen, X. et al. Job Insecurity during an Economic Crisis: the Psychological Consequences of Widespread Corporate Cost-Cutting Announcements. Occup Health Sci 6 , 1–25 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41542-021-00102-8

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Accepted : 24 September 2021

Published : 06 October 2021

Issue Date : March 2022

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s41542-021-00102-8

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Job insecurity.

• Nele De Cuyper Nele De Cuyper KU Leuven
•  and  Hans De Witte Hans De Witte KU Leuven
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.17
• Published online: 28 June 2021

Job insecurity has been high on the policy and research agenda since the 1980s: there has always been cause for concern about job loss, though those causes may vary across context and time. Job insecurity is particularly prevalent among employees with a more precarious profile, in particular employees in blue-collar positions or on temporary contracts, and among employees in jobs of lower quality. Job insecurity has typically been advanced as a stressor and a cause for imbalance in the employment relationship, which has led to the hypothesis that job insecurity induces strain (e.g., poorer health and well-being), poorer attitudes vis-à-vis the job and the organization (e.g., poorer organizational commitment), and poorer performance. This hypothesis has found overall support. In addition, job insecurity also threatens one’s identity, and this has been related to more conservative social attitudes and behaviors, for example, in terms of voting intentions and behavior. Finally, job insecurity affects outcomes beyond the current job and the organization: it affects other stakeholders, for example, labor unions and families, and it has scarring effects in the long term. Studies have also attempted to identify moderators that could buffer the relationship between job insecurity and outcomes; these mostly concern personal, job, and organizational resources. Other studies have sought to explain differences between countries in terms of both structural features and cultural values.

• labor market
• occupational health
• uncertainty
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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Job insecurity and mental health: the moderating role of coping strategies from a gender perspective.

• 1 Department of Psychology, University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain
• 2 Department of Health Sciences, International University of La Rioja (UNIR), La Rioja, Spain

Job insecurity is a growing phenomenon, typical of an employment context characterised by high rates of temporary work and unemployment. Previous research has shown a direct relationship between job insecurity and mental health impairment. The present analysis goes into this relationship in depth, studying the moderating role of coping strategies and predicting that men and women implement different types of strategies. A sample of 1.008 workers is analysed, 588 women and 420 men. The Tobin CSI scale was used to analyse the coping strategies, in addition to JIS-8 to assess job insecurity, the MOS Perceived Social Support Survey and the GHQ-28 test to evaluate mental health. Then, a hierarchical linear regression was designed to study the moderating role of 8 coping strategies of job insecurity and 4 mental health subscales in men and women, separately. Results illustrate that coping strategies play a moderating role in the relationship between job insecurity and mental health. However, the aggravating role of disengagement coping strategies is more relevant than the buffering role of engagement strategies. On the other hand, women implement a greater number of coping strategies, with more positive results for mental health. Also, in the relationship between job insecurity and mental health the most important strategies are the ones related to social interaction inside and outside an organisation, and these are the main ones used by women. It therefore follows that strengthening rich social relationships inside and outside the working environment is a guarantee of well-being.

Introduction

The concept of job insecurity was first defined in the eighties as “the perceived powerlessness to maintain desired continuity in a threatened job situation” ( Greenhalgh and Rosenblatt, 1984 , 438). Since then, there is a trend to abandon the Keynesian job model, characterised by stable jobs and professional careers, in favour of a more flexible labour market that generates more unstable and precarious working conditions ( Burchell et al., 2014 ; Kim and von dem Knesebeck, 2015 ; Nielsen et al., 2015 ). Consequently, the interest in studying job insecurity has gradually increased, especially in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis, as since then, the number of research studies related to this topic has multiplied exponentially ( Llosa et al., 2018 ). Moreover, in countries and/or periods in which unemployment figures rise, a greater fear of job loss is observed among workers ( Keim et al., 2014 ). In this sense, job insecurity is a concept very much linked to precarious work, which highlights the worker’s perception of his/her employment situation. Thus, the individual’s subjectivity is linked to socioeconomic circumstances resulting in a psychosocial phenomenon of precarious work. Job insecurity has been studied as a stressor in the working environment ( Greenhalgh and Rosenblatt, 1984 ). As a generator of stress, there is evidence of manifold negative consequences on workers’ well-being and mental health ( Cheng and Chan, 2008 ; De Witte et al., 2016 ; Lee et al., 2018 ; Llosa et al., 2018 ), related both to depressive disorders ( Blom et al., 2015 ; Kim et al., 2017 ), and to anxiety ( Boya et al., 2008 ). It also has an impact on physical health, such as general physical well-being ( Henseke, 2018 ) or heart diseases ( Schnall et al., 2016 ).

This analysis aims to accurately identify the role played by coping strategies between men and women, when minimising or buffering the negative impact of precarious labour relations on mental health. In this manner, studying coping strategies represent one of the most accessible intervention pathways in any environment.

To approach coping strategies, this study is grounded in the theories of Lazarus and Folkman. These authors define coping strategies as “the constantly changing cognitive and behavioural efforts implemented to manage specific internal and external demands that are appraised as exceeding the resources of the person” ( Lazarus and Folkman, 1984 , 141). Edwards (1988) integrated this definition into the cybernetic theory of stress, considering coping as an effort to reduce or eliminate the negative effects of stress in a person’s well-being. According to several authors, it is what the observer sees, rather than the characteristics of the situation, that determines whether or not the circumstances are evaluated as stressful ( Lazarus and Folkman, 1984 ; Roskies et al., 1993 ; Lazarus, 1996 ).

The most widespread classification of coping strategies identifies two different types of strategies that may be implemented when faced with a stressful circumstance: problem-focused strategies and emotion-focused strategies ( Lazarus and Folkman, 1984 ). The former, geared toward changing the source of stress, generally come about when the source is perceived as subject to change. Emotion-focused strategies, in contrast, consist of regulating the emotional response to the problem, and they are more likely to be implemented when the situation is evaluated as unchanging. In a similar line, Pinquart and Silbereisen (2008) observed that depressive symptoms resulting from different stressful circumstances decreased when implementing one or other type of strategies, depending on whether the situation was perceived as unchanging or not. A third class has also been included, namely, the avoidance strategies, consistent in distancing themselves from the problem, both physically and cognitively ( Skinner et al., 2003 ).

In addition to this general classification, other strategies have been identified when faced with a stressful circumstance. Tobin et al. (1989) reviewed the primary strategies defined by previous authors to build the Coping Strategies Inventory (CSI), proposing eight strategies: Self-Criticism (cognitive strategies focused on criticising oneself and blaming oneself), Problem Solving (cognitive and behavioural strategies designed to eliminate the source of stress by changing the situation), Cognitive Restructuring (altering the meaning of the source of stress to perceive it as less threatening, for example, seeing the positive side), Express Emotions (exteriorising emotions and feeling), Social Support (seeking emotional support from family and friends), Wishful Thinking (cognitive strategies that reflect the desire for reality to be better), Social Withdrawal (isolating oneself socially from other people), and Problem Avoidance (denying the problem and avoiding thoughts or behaviours related to the source of stress). According to these authors, Self-Criticism, Wishful Thinking, Social Withdrawal and Problem Avoidance are strategies defined as disengagement strategies, and the others would be engagement strategies. In the scale adapted to Spanish, Cano-García et al. (2007) confirmed that the same strategies were present in other measurement tools such asWOC or COPE.

Coping Strategies and Job Insecurity

Several studies have demonstrated the moderating role of coping strategies in the relationship between job insecurity and mental health, although analysing the type of strategies under a general classification (emotion-focused or problem-focussed). Bosmans et al. (2015) conclude, after interviewing a group of workers from employment agencies, that the strategies implemented worsen or buffer mental health impairment due to precarious work. According to Richter et al. (2013) and Probst and Jiang (2016) , emotion-focused strategies are the most effective ones to reduce the negative consequences of job insecurity on workers’ well-being. However, problem-focused strategies would not always be effective because it is an uncontrollable stressor ( Vander Elst et al., 2014 ). Avoidance strategies, in turn, aggravate the problem. On their part, Cheng et al. (2014) establish that a set of strategies, which they called active strategies (symptom reduction, accommodation, changing the situation and devaluation), buffered the effects of job insecurity in some variables of psychological well-being in both work and home domains. Furthermore, the authors underscore that the avoidance strategy, catalogued as inactive, induces the opposite effect. These authors highlight the need to use a more specific strategic approach, as they do in their study, instead of just focusing on traditional global categories: emotion-focused or problem-focused. Thus, our research aims to make this approach where the specific strategies that influence the relationship between job insecurity and mental health are considered.

Job Insecurity and Gender

The social dimension of job insecurity means that it is not a phenomenon alien to gender inequalities. Although recent research studies establish that men and women have similar levels of fear of job loss ( Rigotti et al., 2015 ), it has not been analysed whether the use of these strategies affects health in a different way in men and women when the stressor is the anticipation of job loss. Previous studies have focused on gender differences in terms of strategies implemented when faced by stressful events in general. For example, it has been found that women tend to use more strategies than men, both problem-focused and emotion-focused strategies, and they seek more emotional support ( Tamres et al., 2002 ). At the same time, Matud (2004) underscores that the social support strategy and the problem avoidance strategy are specific strategies linked, to a great extent, to women. However, strategies should play an efficient role, namely, to reduce stress, and in this sense, Gattino et al. (2015) found that emotional and instrumental social support strategies are the ones that have the greatest influence on women’s quality of life. However, in the case of men, this well-being is significantly impaired if they use self-criticism as a strategy. Such differences would respond to socialisation on the basis of some pre-established roles, which have two effects: on the one hand, they mean that people are taught different coping styles depending on the allocated gender ( Nelson and Burke, 2002 ); and, on the other hand, generally speaking, men and women do not cope with the same kind of stressors, so the strategies implemented are also different ( Banyard and Graham-Bermann, 1993 ; Matud, 2004 ). However, our study analyses the same kind of stressor, in such a manner that we control this second effect. Knowing this relationship between coping strategies and gender, in our study we want to analyse how their efficacy varies in men and women.

Social Support as a Differential Coping Strategy Between Men and Women

In the study of job insecurity, social support has been one of the main coping strategies addressed. Social support develops differently in men and women. It is defined as “a social network’s provision of psychological and material resources intended to benefit an individual’s ability to cope with stress” ( Cohen, 2004 , 676). Several studies have demonstrated that social support decreases the negative effects of job insecurity ( Lim, 1996 ; Snow et al., 2003 ; Näswall et al., 2005a ; Sora et al., 2011 ), and this strategy is used more often, and also more efficiently, by women ( Matud, 2004 ). In this manner, in our study social support could be more effective in women when they face job insecurity.

There are different types and sources of social support, although in our study two measures of this variable are used: on the one hand, social support as a coping strategy, and, on the other hand, perceived social support (PSS), which refers to the emotional, instrumental and affective resources that a person has ( Sherbourne and Stewart, 1991 ). Thus, although PSS is related to the way in which people feel supported and protected socially, the social support strategy refers to the use we make of those networks. In this sense, Cohen and Wills (1985) suggested that PSS has direct effects on well-being, whereas received social support has protective effects against stress. According to Lakey and Heller (1988) , the latter has an influence on coping behaviours, whereas the former has an impact on processes of cognitive evaluation. However, the support specificity model proposed by Cohen and McKay (1984) establishes that for social support to be effective, it should be accommodated to the specific stressor and circumstance. This different effect could occur in coping with job insecurity, so it will also be testedin this study.

The research question posed is which coping strategies reduce the impact of job insecurity on mental health, and whether there are gender differences between them. Therefore, the main objective is to perform a comparative study between men and women to analyse the moderating role of coping strategies in the relationship between job insecurity and mental health in a sample of Spanish workers. To this end, the following hypotheses are formulated:

H1: Job insecurity is related to higher scores on health scales (somatic symptoms, anxiety, social dysfunction and depression) in men and women alike.

H2: Engagement coping strategies are related to lower scores on health scales, whereas disengagement ones are related to higher scores, in women and men.

H3: Coping strategies play a moderating role in the relationship between job insecurity and health in a different way in men and women.

H4: Coping strategies related to social interaction play a more relevant role, in terms of moderation between job insecurity and mental health, in women than in men.

H5: Perceived social support plays a moderating role in the relationship between job insecurity and mental health.

To date, there are no research studies that provide a specific and detailed approach regarding coping strategies related to the relationship between job insecurity and mental health. This study aims, therefore, to compile different designs used in previous studies to provide new and more practical knowledge of interventions when job insecurity occurs. Following the recommendations of Richter et al. (2013) and Cheng et al. (2014) , the aim of this study is to provide knowledge about the moderating role played by specific coping strategies in terms of the relationship between job insecurity and health. To guide the implications of our results toward a practical intervention approach, the major strategy taxonomies are not analysed (problem-focused and emotion-focused, or engagement and disengagement strategies). The analysis of PSS has also been included to verify the relationship between having this kind of support and using it effectively as a strategy when faced with a stressor such as job insecurity. Finally, gender differences are examined to establish whether social processes leading to gender inequality have an influence on the strategies implemented to cope with job insecurity, and, if so, explain such deviation.

Materials and Methods

Participants.

The sample includes 1008 participants belonging to the Spanish population. Of the total, 420 are men (41.7%) and 588 women (58.3%), aged between 18 and 63 years of age, with a mean of 36.05. At the time of the study, all the subjects were working. To know the profile of the workers participating in the study, the working characteristics and conditions of the sample are compiled in Table 1 .

Table 1. Percentage distributions, means, and Standard Deviations of labour profiles of the sample.

The procedure applied was causal and quota sampling. To this end, the profile of participants required for the study was defined and, then, the people voluntarily completed a self-administered questionnaire. Participants were informed that the data would only be used for research purposes. This research study follows the protocols and requisites of the Ethics Committee of the Department of Psychology of the University of Oviedo (Spain).

Coping Strategies

The CSI by Tobin et al. (1989) was used to measure the coping strategies. The Spanish version has been validated by Cano-García et al. (2007) , and includes 40 items in a 5-point Likert scale format. This scale permits measuring 8 specific coping strategies: Problem Solving (α = 0.82), Self-Criticism (α = 0.94), Express Emotions (α = 0.89), Wishful Thinking (α = 0.78), Social Support strategy (α = 0.89), Cognitive Restructuring (α = 0.83), Problem Avoidance (α = 0.72), and Social Withdrawal (α = 0.81). The authors who validated the Spanish version highlight that these strategies are similar to the ones used in other tools, such as the ways of coping (WOC) ( Folkman and Lazarus, 1980 ) and the COPE ( Carver et al., 1989 ), and that they may be accepted as generic strategies to cope with stressful circumstances.

Mental Health

The General Health Questionnaire GHQ-28 ( Goldberg and Hillier, 1979 ) was used, adapted to the Spanish population by Retolaza Balsategui et al. (1993) . This version includes 28 items and it has a Likert type 4 alternative response format. It measures the general mental health condition in the non-clinical population, obtaining both a general score and four specific scores based on subscales: somatic symptoms, anxiety and insomnia, social dysfunction and severe depression. This scale is widely used in research in psychology with a 0.90 reliability rate in the Spanish adaptation. Subscales are used as independent variables to understand the subject matter in greater detail.

Job Insecurity

JIS-8 or 8-item version Job Insecurity Scale, developed by Pienaar et al. (2013) was used. It has a Likert type 5 response alternative format. It offers a global score and it also measures two dimensions of job insecurity: the cognitive dimension, made up of the first 4 items, and the affective dimension, which includes the 4 remaining items. It has been validated to the Spanish population by Llosa et al. (2017) , resulting in a reliability score of 0.88 for the global score, which has been used in this study.

Perceived Social Support

This has been measured using the MOS Scale of PSS ( Sherbourne and Stewart, 1991 ), validated to the Spanish population by Revilla Ahumada et al. (2005) with an internal consistency close to 1. It includes 20 items: one with open-ended response and 19 Likert type from 1 to 5.

Data Analysis

A hierarchical linear regression was performed to study the moderating role of the eight coping strategies between job insecurity and the four mental health subscales. Following recommendations by Cohen et al. (2003) , the predictive variable (job insecurity) and the moderators (each of the coping strategies and PSS) were centred. Thus, the interpretation of the results is facilitated and multicollinearity among the predictive variables is reduced ( Aiken et al., 1991 ). The regression analysis was performed in four stages: first, the job insecurity variable was introduced, based on the global score on the JIS-8 scale. Secondly, the second variable of PSS was added. Then, the eight coping strategies were introduced, and finally, the interaction between job insecurity and each of the coping strategies, as well as the variable of PSS.

Table 2 shows the means, standard deviations and correlations of all the variables included in the study, segregated by genders. The regression results are shown in Table 3 for men and Table 4 for women.

Table 2. Correlations, means, and Standard Deviations of the variable included in the study by gender.

Table 3. Results of hierarchical regression analysis for job insecurity, coping strategies and GHQ-28 subscales for men (standardised coefficients).

Table 4. Results of hierarchical regression analysis for job insecurity.

It is observed that job insecurity (JI) has direct effects on the different areas of mental health evaluated, in men as well as in women. This variable explains between 4 and 8% of the variance in somatic symptoms, anxiety and social dysfunction in men, and in this group it shows a greater weight in depression (β = 0.280). In women, it explains between 2 and 5% in the same variables, and its weight is greater in anxiety and insomnia (β = 0.223). PSS is also statistically significant in all the dependent variables, as well as in both samples, increasing the explained variance percentage for all of them.

In terms of the group of strategies, analysed in stage 3, the main difference between the groups is the existence of a greater variety of statistically significant strategies in the subscales of the female sample. Thus, self-criticism (SC) is the most relevant variable in women, as it is significant in more mental health scores. It is followed by cognitive restructuring (CR) and express emotions (EE). In men, the strategies that are significant in more mental health subscales are wishful thinking (WT) and social withdrawal (SW). If we consider the dependent variables with a greater number of predictive strategies, in the case of men, they are anxiety and insomnia, and social dysfunction, whereas in women the four subscales show a similar influence, anxiety and insomnia being altered by a greater number of strategies.

As for stage 4, where the moderating role of strategies between job insecurity and health subscales is studied, this relationship is only observed in some strategies. There are certain differences between the groups. In men, only problem solving (PS) seems to interact when it is related to job insecurity and severe depression. In women, all the dependent variables are affected: problem avoidance (PA) increases somatic symptoms when it interacts with job insecurity (β = -0.097); anxiety and insomnia decrease with the social support strategy (SS) (β = 0.135); social dysfunction is reduced with the social support strategy (SS) (β = 0.130) and problem solving (PS) (β = 0.125), and it gets worse with wishful thinking (WT) (β = -0.117). Finally, problem solving (PS) is moderated with severe depression (β = 0.136), as occurs in men. No interaction has been observed between the PSS variable (PSS) and job insecurity that is statistically significant in the mental health variables.

The aim of this study was to identify coping strategies capable of buffering the impact of job insecurity on different mental health areas and determine whether or not there were gender differences. The results provide relevant knowledge to scientific literature related to the study of job insecurity, as well as the practical implications to reduce the effects of this phenomenon on workers’ mental health.

In general, it has been found that women possess a greater variety of coping strategies that play a moderating role between job insecurity and mental health, whereas men only have one, social withdrawal, which is also significant in the female group. The most relevant strategies to cope with job insecurity and to prevent the development of mental disorders are social withdrawal and social support. Moreover, it is observed that the role of disengagement coping strategies is more relevant than the role of engagement coping strategies in terms of a moderating effect. The most relevant findings, however, are linked to strategies focused on social interaction, a type of strategy used mainly by women. This shows that strategies related to the collective scale are more useful than those developed individually, which should guide organisational interventions.

Results confirm that job insecurity is a relevant stressor, reinforcing the conclusions obtained in previous studies that also showed these negative consequences of job insecurity on mental and physical health ( De Witte et al., 2016 ; Schnall et al., 2016 ; Kim et al., 2017 ; Llosa et al., 2018 ). This study illustrates that it is a phenomenon that has an impact on workers’ mental health in its different indicators, in men and in women. Thus, there is full compliance with H1.

Regarding coping strategies, its direct relationship with health is also confirmed. Moreover, there is a greater variety in terms of the number and types of strategies that have an effect on women’s health, thus fully complying with H2. This result is similar to the one found by other research studies such as the study by Tamres et al. (2002) , although these authors referred to general stressors, while we focus on a specific source of stress, namely, job insecurity. Express emotions appears to be a relevant strategy, as these authors had shown, as well as Matud (2004) , because express emotions and social support are strategies that are implemented mostly by women to cope with stressful circumstances. In this group, it has been observed that self-criticism is the emotional reaction that impairs mental health the most, contrasting with the findings of Gattino et al. (2015) , who concluded that this strategy had a greater impact on men’s quality of life. In our case, social withdrawal is the strategy with the most significant effect on men’s mental health.

H3 and H4 refer to the moderating role of coping strategies in the relationship between job insecurity and mental health. H3 is complied with, as a different effect has been found between men and women, that is, neither the number nor the type of significant strategies are the same in both genders. Just as there is a greater number of coping strategies directly related to women’s health, it was observed that this relationship is maintained in their moderating role. In the case of men, the only strategy that worsens severe depression symptoms when related to job insecurity is the social withdrawal strategy. In women, avoidance and wishful thinking play a moderating role, but social support and social withdrawal strategies are more relevant because they are related to at least two mental health areas. Therefore, H4 is partially complied with. These latter strategies –social support and social withdrawal-were previously associated with female coping ( Matud, 2004 ). In terms of PSS, this variable does directly have a relevant and positive effect on mental health. However, this variable does not act as a buffer for the consequences of job insecurity, and therefore, H5 is not complied with.

Although the aim of the study was to analyse specific strategies, an interesting result has been found with regard to its general classification. The same pattern is observed in terms of the general effect of the strategies on health and in their moderating role with respect to job insecurity: the aggravating effect of disengagement strategies is greater than the buffering effect of the engagement strategies. The only beneficial strategy for mental health to cope with job insecurity is the social support strategy. In contrast, when comparing this strategy with the results related to PSS, a discrepancy is found. Noteworthy is the difference between the PSS (the perception of having a support network) and the social support strategy (not only the existence of a support network, but that the person uses it).

Perceived social support has a direct impact on the mental health of both men and women, whereas the social support strategy does not. However, to mitigate the effects of job insecurity, the relationship is inverted: social support as a strategy acts as a buffer in women, whereas PSS does not fulfil that role in any of the groups. These results confirm the hypothesis of Cohen and Wills (1985) , who explained a functioning and role for each type of support that was similar to the one we have obtained. Thus, to cope with job insecurity, it does not suffice to have a social support network, but rather, individuals should actively resort to it to cope with the analysed stressor. This could be explained by the family being an important source of social support, although having family responsibilities is a risk factor for the development of job insecurity ( Sverke and Hellgren, 2002 ).

With regard to the discrepancy between men and women, a possible explanation could result from the relationship between gender roles and strategies. There is a path of study on coping strategies that states that these are more effective when a gender implements strategies typical of the roles in which they have socialised ( Lengua and Stormshak, 2000 ). According to this theory, women would be more successful when using more emotional strategies, including social support, and men when using strategies more focused on action ( Nelson and Burke, 2002 ; Gattino et al., 2015 ). However, we have seen that, to cope with job insecurity, in the case of men there are no more efficient strategies, the withdrawal strategy being the only relevant one, which implies rejecting social support. We have observed that this is related to the development of severe depression, especially in men. On the other hand, one of the characteristics of job insecurity is that it is a non-controllable stressor ( Vander Elst et al., 2014 ),and therefore, the strategies that are more focused on problem solving, more widely used by men, would not be more beneficial for well-being ( Richter et al., 2013 ; Probst and Jiang, 2016 ).

Thus, the efficacy of the social support strategy in women reinforces the idea that socialisation, depending on differentiated gender roles, has an effect on the types of strategies implemented when faced with different circumstances. But, education in gender roles, which trains us in different WOC with situations, limits the adaptation of the most efficient strategies to each event. For example, if men receive an education that is less focused on emotional strategies, it will be more difficult for them to find the necessary resources to achieve successful coping when faced with stressors such as job insecurity.

In short, we have found that job insecurity is a phenomenon that requires more than mere individual coping strategies to buffer its negative impact on mental health. These results perfectly illustrate the important social dimension of job insecurity, similarly to Lim (1996) and Näswall et al. (2005b) who found that the social support obtained both at the workplace and outside the workplace had a positive impact on different areas of workers’ well-being when they developed job insecurity. Authors such as Patterson (2003) and Perreault et al. (2017) obtained similar results regarding the relationship between social support and stress in general. This approach could be associated with the study by Dunahoo et al. (1998) , which suggests paying greater attention to the prosocial-antisocial axis around which the reactions in the event of a stressful circumstance can be categorised.

There is a wide array of research studies related to the multilevel or psychosocial dimensions of job insecurity. This phenomenon is influenced by socioeconomic factors, both in terms of their occurrence and their consequences ( Keim et al., 2014 ; Jiang and Probst, 2017 ; Shoss, 2017 ; Lee et al., 2018 ). Even the implementation of strategies such as the intention to change jobs, studied in the context of job insecurity ( Stiglbauer et al., 2012 ), depends on the employability perceived by the individual ( Balz and Schuller, 2018 ). This factor is related, among other aspects, to social class ( Clarke, 2017 ), family circumstances and gender ( Lebert and Voorpostel, 2016 ). At an organisational level, experiencing a climate of uncertainty in the company induces greater job insecurity among workers, individually ( Sora et al., 2013 ). Therefore, the way to cope with or avoid psychological consequences must be holistic, reaching different levels ( Bliese and Jex, 2002 ; Sora et al., 2011 ).

Finally, having addressed the relevance of the social support-related strategies to mitigate the effects of job insecurity on health, especially on women’s health, we shall now tackle some intervention measures by way of conclusion. Two associated factors, which would hamper the implementation of this strategy, have been identified. The first is the increase in temporary contracts and more unstable working conditions ( Crespo et al., 2009 ; Burchell et al., 2014 ; Nielsen et al., 2015 ). This fact makes it difficult to create those support networks at the workplace. On the other hand, in the economic and cultural context of liberal capitalism that fosters individualism, the individual often views him or herself as responsible or guilty of his or her labour situation ( Marzano, 2011 ; Agulló-Tomás et al., 2018 ). This increases the use of strategies focused on individual action, or self-criticism as an emotional response. However, our results, in the line of previous studies by Richter et al. (2013) or Gattino et al. (2015) , show that these strategies are not very efficient to cope with job insecurity, and that they even deteriorate health further.

Limitations and Future Research

Some limitations must be considered when interpreting the results of this study. It is a research study with a cross-sectional design, but it would be advisable to analyze these relationships between coping strategies, job insecurity and mental health through longitudinal design studies that allow taking time factors into account, making it easier to obtain causal conclusions. This kind of designs are less common in studies on job insecurity and they are recommended to go deeper into the analysis of this variable ( Richter et al., 2013 ; Cheng et al., 2014 ), as well as the coping strategies and their effects ( Mantler et al., 2005 ). Moreover, this research study has been performed on a general sample of workers, and in future studies, it would be advisable to control variables such as age, working conditions, type of professional sector, salary, etc., as well as to analyse different worker profiles, or compare different cultural and socioeconomic frameworks. It should also be noted that there is a large presence of partial contracts in the sample, especially in women. It would be necessary to address this aspect in more depth in the future, due to its implications of mental health. This must be done whilst maintaining the gender approach, as some differences have been identified in terms of the influence of the socialisation of men and women on the development and efficacy of the coping strategies. On the other hand, it would be interesting to use tools to measure coping strategies that focus especially on the specific phenomenon of job insecurity. It is proposed to develop scales that include specific actions or strategies to tackle apotential job loss.

Finally, although no evidence has been found to the extent that belonging to a trade union can mediate between job insecurity and psychological well-being ( Hellgren et al., 2000 ), we propose stimulating this kind of studies in the current framework. In recent years, social movements have been forming groups of people with common labour problems that have turned a stressful personal and family circumstance into collective struggles. These are action-focused resources, but which may represent a relevant source of social support in its different forms (informational, affective, instrumental), and thus, it would be very interesting to replicate this research in male and female workers linked to this kind of groups. In this regard, Lee et al. (2018) highlight the need for research that analyses how community intervention can reduce job insecurity or its effects on people.

Practical Implications

The present study has relevant practical implications when carrying out interventions on the effects of job insecurity that would be useful for work in the field of job counselling, human resource departments, enterprises in general, as well as other social players engaged in community intervention. The main conclusion reached refers to the fact that workers cannot be deemed responsible for not implementing some specific actions when faced with a potential job loss. Intervention should come at different levels, from the individual level to the organisational and social levels, as it has been observed that social support plays a paramount role. Thus, it is important to implement preventive measures to help people have a support network, and also to teach them how to use it. In companies, it is recommended to implement actions that promote a good working climate that would prevent other kinds of disorders related to the workplace ( Boada-Grau et al., 2009 ), as well as to facilitate personal contact among workers. Outside the company, community intervention is a key element to foster the growth of contact networks among individuals in the social sphere. In terms of individual practical implications, the fact that having a social support network is no longer sufficient is gaining relevance; people must also use them. This is the reason why clinical interventions when a person feels unwell or discomfort due to job insecurity should be geared toward the patient learning how to look to his or her environment to obtain emotional, informational, instrumental and affective resources that decrease the perceived stress. Further, we have found that disengagement strategies (social withdrawal, self-criticism, wishful thinking or problem avoidance) are the ones more strongly linked to mental health, and thus, interventions should be aimed, also, at preventing the use of this kind of coping.

The results shown in this article have broadened the knowledge on the way workers can cope with perceived job insecurity to reduce its negative effects on mental health. It has been found that there are coping strategies that may play a mediating role, with some gender differences. Mainly, disengagement strategies aggravate the psychological consequences of job insecurity, such as, wishful thinking, self-criticism, and problem avoidance in women, and social withdrawal in men. The only strategy that plays a buffering role between insecurity and mental health is social support, and it is only effective in women. We conclude, therefore, by stating that using personal social networks to cope with job insecurity is the best strategy to avoid developing psychological disorders resulting from this situation, especially depressive disorders. We thus propose the need to work on preventing and treating job insecurity from a multilevel or holistic approach, including the individual sphere, but aimed at reinforcing social bonds. This study confirms the already widespread idea that gender roles limit our psychological resources, in this case referring to the way in which we cope with a specific source of stress such as job insecurity. Hence, we underscore the need to promote and develop new and more egalitarian forms of education and socialisation.

Ethics Statement

This study was carried out in accordance with the requirements and protocols of the Ethics Committee of Oviedo University. The protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of Oviedo University. All subjects gave written informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Author Contributions

SM-E, JL, and EA-T conceived and designed the work. SM-E, HL, and RS-V collected the data. SM-E, JL, EA-T, JR-S, and RS-V analysed and interpreted the data. SM-E and JL drafted the article. EA-T and JR-S critically revised the article and approved the published version.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Keywords : job insecurity, mental health, coping strategies, moderating role, gender perspective, gender

Citation: Menéndez-Espina S, Llosa JA, Agulló-Tomás E, Rodríguez-Suárez J, Sáiz-Villar R and Lahseras-Díez HF (2019) Job Insecurity and Mental Health: The Moderating Role of Coping Strategies From a Gender Perspective. Front. Psychol. 10:286. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00286

Received: 17 August 2018; Accepted: 29 January 2019; Published: 18 February 2019.

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Copyright © 2019 Menéndez-Espina, Llosa, Agulló-Tomás, Rodríguez-Suárez, Sáiz-Villar and Lahseras-Díez. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Esteban Agulló-Tomás, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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The Construct of Job Insecurity at Multiple Levels: Implications for Its Conceptualization and Theory Development

Beatriz sora.

1 Department of Psychology, University Rovira i Virgili, 43007 Tarragona, Spain

Thomas Höge

2 Department of Psychology, University of Innsbruck, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria

Amparo Caballer

3 Faculty of Psychology, University of Valencia, 46010 Valencia, Spain

José Maria Peiró

4 Faculty of Psychology, Universitat de Valencia & IVIE, 46010 Valencia, Spain

Associated Data

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions. The data reported in this article were collected as part of a larger data collection. Other studies have been published with this dataset, but the research objectives and hypothesis examined in the present article have not been examined in any previous or current articles, or to the best of our knowledge in any papers that will be under review soon.

Over the years, job insecurity has accumulated important scholarly work. As a result, research has identified multiple constructs that involve employees’ concerns about job loss. Most of these are individual-level constructs (e.g., subjective and objective job insecurity), but, recently, an incipient body of literature has adopted a multilevel perspective by understanding job insecurity as a collective phenomenon (e.g., job insecurity climate, strength climate, downsizing or temporary hiring strategies). Furthermore, these constructs at different levels are underpinned by shared theoretical frameworks, such as stress theory or psychological contract theory. However, all this literature fails to present an integrative framework that contains the functional relationship for mapping job insecurity constructs across levels. Accordingly, the present study aims to examine job insecurity from a multilevel perspective, specifically by conceptualizing job insecurity at the individual level—understood as subjective and objective job insecurity—and at the organizational level, understood as job instability in an organization, job insecurity climate, and climate strength. The methodology of multilevel construct validation proposed by Chen, Mathieu and Bliese (2005) was applied; thus, (1) job insecurity were defined at each relevant level of analysis; (2) its nature and structure was specified at higher levels of analysis; (3) psychometric properties were tested across and/or at different levels of analysis; (4) the extent to which job insecurity varies between levels of analysis was estimated; and (5) the function of job insecurity was tested across different levels of analysis. The results showed significant relationships among these, and were related to an organizational antecedent (e.g., organization nature) and organizational and individual outcomes (collective and individual job satisfaction) in two European samples: Austria and Spain. Accordingly, this study exposed the multilevel validity of job insecurity constructs through an integrative framework in order to advance in the area of job insecurity theory and practice. The contributions and implications to job insecurity research and other multilevel research are discussed.

1. The Construct of Job Insecurity at Multiple Levels: Implications for Its Conceptualization and Theory Development

An important body of research has focused on studying job insecurity and related constructs involving job uncertainty, such as downsizing processes, job insecurity climate, subjective job insecurity, or temporary employment. Despite widespread attention from scholars, professionals and policymakers, several challenges remain to be addressed. For example, most of this research has adopted an individual perspective, overlooking the influence of contextual factors. Only recently, an emerging body of research has begun to examine job insecurity as a contextual construct from a multilevel perspective [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 ] (e.g., De Cuyper, Sora, De Witte, Caballer, and Peiró, 2009). In fact, the need to examine job insecurity at higher levels had already been stressed by Mohr [ 8 ], whose four-phase model hinted at the adoption of a multilevel perspective as an alternative path for research into job insecurity. This multilevel research is necessary because, according to Klein, Tosi and Cannella, “ Multilevel theories, thus, begin to bridge the micro-macro divide, integrating the micro domain’s focus on individuals and groups with the macro domain’s focus on organizations, environment, and strategy. The result is a deeper, richer portrait of organizational life—one that acknowledges the influence of the organizational context on individuals’ actions and perceptions and the influence of individuals’ actions and perceptions on the organizational context ” (1999, p. 243) [ 9 ]. The multilevel approach, therefore, has provided a set of benefits for research into job insecurity, and the research has significantly advanced.

However, there is a perceptible lack of a substantive framework for the validation of psychological constructs at multiple levels of analysis. Organizational researchers are likely to focus on either a micro- or macro-perspective, finding it difficult to design integrating theories [ 10 ]. It is necessary to understand the nature of constructs at higher levels before pursuing multilevel research and theory [ 11 ], as underlined by Chen, Mathieu and Bliese (2005) [ 12 ], who pointed out that multilevel construct validation is a fundamental aspect of advancing theory and practice in the areas of industrial-organizational psychology, organizational behavior, human resources, strategic management, and other related fields.

Where constructs depart from different levels (i.e., individual and collective levels), it is necessary to define the constructs in relation to these different levels and determine the characteristics they have in common. Differences of conceptualization in terms of level of analysis mean that, though these constructs may share similarities, they also manifest themselves in different ways. Collective constructs can be closely linked to their lower-level namesake, while differing in subtle and important ways [ 13 ]. For example, according to Schwartz (1994, p. 820) [ 14 ]: “the construct referenced on the ecological level [the group mean] may be the context or social environment in which individuals live, distinct from the attributes of those individuals. Thus, poverty as an individual characteristic and poverty as a neighborhood characteristic may exert different, independent effects on health”.

As far as we know, no study attempts to provide an empirically tested, multilevel definition of job insecurity according to a specific model, which determines whether processes and relationships among variables at the individual level are consistent with analogous processes and relationships at higher levels, such as the organizational level. In this study, we focus on the following constructs reflecting job uncertainties at the individual and the organizational level: objective job insecurity, subjective job insecurity, job insecurity climate, job insecurity climate strength, and job instability in organizations. Additional topics of importance may exist, but we believe these to be the core constructs of current job insecurity research.

To carry out our objective, we follow the principles of multilevel construct validation proposed by Chen, Mathieu and Bliese (2005) [ 12 ]. Thus, five consecutive steps were performed for the validation of job insecurity constructs at multiple levels: (1) define the focal construct at each relevant level of analysis; (2) specify the nature and structure of the construct at higher levels of analysis; (3) test the psychometric properties of the construct across and/or at different levels of analysis; (4) estimate the extent to which the construct varies between levels of analysis; and (5) test the function of the focal construct across different levels of analysis. The present article is organized according to the five phases of this validation process. However, validation of the meaningfulness of a construct at multiple levels involves, not only theoretical development, but also empirical testing, which is specifically required for steps 3, 4 and 5. A methodology section is therefore presented first, to explain how the empirical study was conducted. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for future research.

• Step 1. Construct definition: Conceptualization of job insecurity at multiple levels

In defining the construct of job insecurity at multiple levels, we have deliberately focused on two of the most explored levels of theory and analysis in the multilevel organizational literature: individuals and organizations [ 9 ].

• Job Insecurity at Individual Level: An Individual Experience

Individual job insecurity reflects the individual’s perceived threat of becoming unemployed. This concept has been defined in numerous ways in the literature. For example, Greenhalgh and Rosenblatt (1984, p. 438–4480) [ 15 ], defined job insecurity as “the perceived powerlessness to maintain the desired continuity in a threatened job situation”. Davy [ 16 ], understood job insecurity as employee “expectations about continuity in a job situation”, Van Vuuren and Klandermans [ 17 ] as “concern about the future permanence of the job”, and Sverke, Hellgren and Näswall [ 18 ] as the “subjectively experienced anticipation of a fundamental and involuntary event related to job loss”. Despite the differences, there is a common denominator in the content of these definitions. They all understand job insecurity as an overall concern about the continued existence of the job in the future [ 19 ], and they all agree on a set of aspects related to job insecurity. Firstly, job insecurity is a subjective experience or perception. The same situation can be perceived differently by different employees. Therefore, two employees in the same situation can have different levels of perceived job insecurity. Secondly, job insecurity involves uncertainty about the future. Employees who experience job insecurity are concerned about whether they will retain or lose their current jobs. The consequence of this is that they cannot adequately prepare themselves for the future because they are not sure what measures to take. This situation differs from that of certain dismissal, where employees are aware of their situation and can adopt the necessary measures to cope with the loss of employment. Thirdly, job insecurity is characterized by its involuntary nature and a feeling of powerlessness. The experience of job insecurity is not associated with a deliberate choice of an insecure job, but is related to a discrepancy between the level of job security preferred by the employee and that offered by the employer. Lastly, job insecurity involves feelings of helplessness in relation to maintaining job continuity. Although it is possible to find several conceptualizations of job insecurity that involve this involuntary, helplessness and uncontrollable nature, Shoss [ 20 ], in his critical review, suggested to exclude these aspects from job insecurity nature in order to clean up and clarify this phenomenon. Therefore, she recommended adopting a global construct of job insecurity that exists on a continuum from insecure to secure.

In contrast to the subjective definition of job insecurity, another line of research stresses that job insecurity is not generally a purely subjective, idiosyncratic perception, but rather is related to reality, and therefore to an objective, condition-related threat of job loss [ 21 ]. This threat may be produced by an imminent bankruptcy or the temporary nature of the job. This second possibility has been more extensively developed in the literature to increase understanding of the objective character of job insecurity [ 22 ]. According to the segmentation theory [ 23 ], the labor market and organizations can be divided into primary and secondary segments. The primary segment contains the primary jobs at the core of an organization, characterized by good working conditions and employment stability; whereas jobs belonging to the secondary segment are characterized by poorer conditions and employment instability. Temporary workers are positioned in the secondary segment because, compared to permanent workers (primary segment), they are not considered essential for the organization. Hence, the organization offers neither explicit nor implicit employment stability to temporary workers and, independently of individual perceptions, temporary employment is related to higher levels of job insecurity [ 22 ].

Other researchers differentiate between quantitative and qualitative job insecurity [ 24 , 25 ]. The quantitative perspective understands job insecurity as the perceived threat to the job itself; in other words, employees are uncertain about whether they will maintain their current jobs or become unemployed. The qualitative perspective refers to the continuity of valued aspects of the jobs, such as pay, working hours, colleagues, or job content. Finally, a cognitive and emotional differentiation has been drawn in the conceptualization of job insecurity. Cognitive job insecurity reflects the employee’s ideas and thoughts in relation to losing their job, compared to the emotional insecurity evoked by the feelings and fears associated with the cognition [ 26 ].

Despite the diversity in the conceptualization of job insecurity, there are two main paths of research into job insecurity at the individual level. One of these proposes that job insecurity is a subjective experience that involves concern and fear of job loss. The other refers to the idea that objective job insecurity is reflected by aspects of the employment relationship, such as temporary employment. Thus, job insecurity at the individual level has been mainly studied either as a subjective and quantitative phenomenon, or as an objective phenomenon, in terms of temporary employment [ 18 , 20 , 22 , 27 , 28 ]. Regarding subjective job insecurity, this study, following the study by Shoss [ 20 ], adopted a global construct of job insecurity.

Subjective job insecurity has mainly been studied from the stress theory perspective [ 29 ]. This theoretical framework defines job insecurity as a personal and individual experience, within which individuals appraise, first, the likelihood of job loss as a threat and, secondly, whether they have the necessary resources to cope with this threat successfully. Thus, the perception of job insecurity may vary across individuals in the same situation [ 30 ].

The consequences of objective job insecurity are also explained by a stress theoretical framework. It is argued that temporary employment involves more aggravating job characteristics [ 22 , 28 ]. This is congruent with assumptions from segmentation theory, as previously mentioned. More specifically, temporary employment implies specific stressors and impaired resources in four categories: job content (e.g., low autonomy, low skill utilization, role ambiguity), working conditions (e.g., painful and tiring positions, lack of information), employment conditions (e.g., poor wages, poor training and career development), and social relations at work (e.g., reduced involvement in participative decision-making processes) [ 28 ]. The nature and effects of objective job insecurity can also be derived from psychological contract theory. The psychological contract refers to the “perceptions about a set of mutual obligations that link employers and employees” [ 31 ]. Non-fulfillment of employee expectations on the part of the organization usually means a breach of the psychological contract [ 32 ]. To understand a psychological contract breach in the case of temporary and permanent workers, it is necessary to consider the breadth of the psychological contract, which varies according to the type of employment, with the psychological contract of temporary workers involving fewer expectations than that of permanent workers [ 33 , 34 ]. Temporary workers usually have a transactional psychological contract based primarily on economic exchange, whereas permanent workers have a relational psychological contract with an economic and a socio-emotional exchange. Hence, permanent workers are more likely to experience a stronger psychological contract breach than temporary workers because their psychological contract is more complex, with a greater number of expectations.

• Job Insecurity at Higher Levels: A Collective and Shared Experience

There are a number of ways to understand job insecurity at higher levels. On the one hand, organizations are open systems with their own specific properties, characteristics, and structures [ 35 ]. These organizational factors shape a context in which individuals are exposed to common features, events, and procedures. A significant event involving job insecurity might be, for example, a downsizing process, whereby employees are exposed to a context of uncertainty and threat of job loss. In fact, a vast body of literature has demonstrated how organizational contexts characterized by job uncertainty and job instability due to downsizing can affect employees’ perceptions, attitudes and behaviors [ 31 , 36 , 37 ].

On the other hand, a certain degree of interdependence among employees in groups and organizations usually leads to bottom-up and top-down influence mechanisms [ 10 ]. Employees are nested in a similar context, in which some perceptions are more likely to develop than others. Individuals interact and share perceptions, which over time can converge into consensual views of the organization [ 38 ], leading collective perceptions to emerge from individual perceptions within organizations. This assumption underpins the basis of collective constructs such as organizational climate. Research has distinguished between the level of the organizational climate, understood as “the average of perceptions of employees within an organization” [ 39 ], and the strength of the organizational climate, conceptualized as “the degree of within-unit agreement among unit members’ climate perceptions” [ 40 ].

Against this background, we aimed to examine potential collective constructs related to job insecurity at the organizational level. More specifically, we examined job instability in an organization, understood as an organizational context in which an event or practice involving the reduction of a workforce has taken place. We also examined the emergence of job insecurity perception at higher levels: job insecurity climate and climate strength. Job instability could be seen as analogous to objective job insecurity at the organizational level, and job insecurity climate is analogous to subjective job insecurity at the organizational level.

Job instability in an organization: Throughout the most recent global economic crisis, an uncertain economic climate combined with the global marketplace has caused organizations to re-evaluate how they function. Many organizations have adopted measures to assure their survival and competitiveness. Mergers and acquisitions, restructuring, early retirement, or downsizing have become common practices, all of which involve the reduction of the workforce. In the aftermath of mergers and acquisitions, for example, personnel redundancies often arise. Employee downsizing represents a means by which the merged entity can remove slack and achieve operational synergies [ 41 ]. Downsizing is a managerial strategy that affects the size of the organization’s workforce and the work processes used [ 42 , 43 ]. Once a last-ditch measure to salvage a company, downsizing has become an accepted and almost routine management strategy [ 42 ].

Downsizing has an extraordinary impact on the organizational environment and its members. Appelbaum, Close and Klasa [ 44 ] pointed out that a downsizing process divides the workforce of an organization into two groups: one that leaves the organization, and another that remains. Confusion exists because employees who lose their jobs may not fully understand the reasons for their loss of employment; and those employees who remain may be perceived to have done little or nothing more to keep their positions. None of them can be said to truly responsible for their situations. Thus, the organization’s remaining workforce is likely to experience a “survivor syndrome”, defined as “the mixed bag of behaviours and emotions often exhibited by remaining employees following an organizational downsizing” [ 45 ]. In other words, while a downsizing operation is undoubtedly an emotionally wrenching process for the employees who lose their jobs, the survivors can have similar experiences [ 44 , 46 ]. Moreover, a downsizing process is often perceived as a violation of the psychological contract between employer and employees. Employees expect their contributions to the organization to be reciprocated with a stable and positive workplace. A downsizing process involves instability in the work environment, specifically with regard to the continuity of job positions in the organization. This idea is also underpinned by the stress theory perspective [ 29 ]. Although stress is understood as a subjective and personal experience, Lazarus and Folkman [ 29 ], emphasized that some events are generally perceived as stressful, and hence are deemed to be collective stressors. Lazarus and Folkman [ 29 ] also suggested that factors such as ambiguity and uncertainty are key in the perception of an event as stressful for most people. An environmental configuration is ambiguous when the information necessary for appraisal is unclear or insufficient. Uncertainty reflects the fact that people are confused about the meaning of the environmental configuration. Events that cause uncertainty can be stressful because they have an immobilizing effect on anticipatory coping processes. Both characteristics are present in a downsizing process, because employees rarely receive clear information and report concern about not knowing what is going to happen [ 47 ].

In this respect, empirical studies have shown how organizational downsizing creates an instable work environment, which is perceived as a threat by employees. More specifically, downsizing is experienced as a source of job uncertainty for employees, regardless of whether or not their own job is directly threatened [ 48 , 49 ]. Downsizing differs from job insecurity in its focus at the organizational level of analysis. According to this framework, job instability in an organization may be defined as a single generalized threat. In the present study, we define job instability in the organization as any organizational event that increases the possibility of job loss.

Several cross-sectional and longitudinal studies have also demonstrated that contexts characterized by job uncertainty have a harmful effect on employees, such as impaired mental and physical health, job attitudes or work behaviors [ 31 , 36 , 46 ].

Job insecurity climate. Organizational climate is defined as “the shared perception of the way things is around here. More precisely, climate is shared perceptions of organizational policies, practices and procedures” [ 50 ]. Conceptualized as a property at a higher level, organizational climate is generated as a result of the coalescence of individual perceptions, and hence focuses on how a situation is linked to worker perceptions [ 51 ].

Traditionally, the climate concept was used as a global term related to employee perceptions of different facets of the organization. However, this conceptualization was considered too amorphous, and more specific climates related to particular facets of the organization were proposed [ 52 , 53 ]. A single organization can have multiple climate types, according to the different facets of their environments [ 52 ], such as justice [ 54 ], safety [ 55 ], or affective tone [ 56 ]. Studies by Sora [ 5 , 6 ] showed that organizations also have a climate related to job insecurity, referred to as job insecurity climate. Sora [ 5 ] defined job insecurity climate as shared concerns about the continued existence of employee jobs. These authors lent empirical support to the construct of job insecurity climate with two different samples: a Spanish sample consisting of 20 organizations and 428 employees, and a Belgian sample consisting of 18 organizations and 550 employees. This study provided evidence of the emergence of collective concerns about job losses in organizations. The construct was replicated in subsequent studies conducted by the same researchers [ 5 , 6 ]. Later, Låstad [ 3 , 4 ], Jiang and Probst [ 57 ], Hsieh and Kao [ 1 ], Guidetti, Converso, DiFiore and Viotti [ 58 ], Tomas, Seršić, and De Witte, [ 59 ], and Nikolova [ 2 ] also provided additional evidence of the emergence of job insecurity climates as a higher-level construct in samples from Sweden, United States, Taiwan, Germany and Netherlands.

The emergence of job insecurity climates can be explained according to different theoretical frameworks. For example, following Schneider and Reichers(1983, p. 19–39) [ 53 ], organizational climates, generally speaking, emerge through three different processes: (1) a structuralist approach; (2) attraction–selection–attrition theory (Schneider, 1987); and (3) socialization theory.

The structuralist approach [ 60 ] suggests that the climate is generated by collective exposure to objective structural characteristics of the work context (i.e., size of the organization, centrality of decision-making, or the degree to which rules and policies constrain individual behavior). Members of an organization are subject to the same structural influences; hence they tend to experience similar perceptions. For example, in terms of job insecurity, human resource policies and practices may be essential to the emergence and nature of this climate. When the different dimensions of human resource policies and practices converge into carelessness and workforce instability as a result of, for example, poor labor conditions, temporality of contracts, lack of voice in the organization, lack of future or unclear career paths within an organization, it follows that employee perceptions will also converge in this direction. Furthermore, Schneider’s [ 53 ] attraction–selection–attrition theory proposes that organizations attract, select and retain employees with similar perceptions to those of the organization, as well as weed out those that deviate from those shared perceptions. Socialization theory [ 54 ] explains how old-timers transmit their perceptions, values and norms to newcomers, thus ensuring their assimilation into the organization.

Consistent with these models, other theoretical foundations may also contribute to explain how individuals can share their perceptions. For example, social comparison theory [ 61 ] states that individuals interact with referent others to better understand and make sense of uncertain situations, adapting their perceptions accordingly. Social information theory [ 62 ] also suggests that individuals use information drawn from their own past experiences and the thoughts of others to build their own perceptions. All these theoretical foundations support the assumption that individuals within a work context share their personal and individual perceptions, such as perceived job insecurity, leading to the emergence of a climate as a higher-level property (i.e., job insecurity climate).

Research further indicates that leadership is an important factor that shapes the formation and maintenance of climate perceptions [ 63 , 64 ]. Indeed, leaders have been labeled “climate engineers” [ 65 ].

According to stress theory [ 29 ], job insecurity climate can be understood as a collective job stressor. Stress may not just be an individual experience, but it can also present collective properties. From this perspective, the role of social groups, contexts, and intersubjective experiences of stress are highlighted in understanding the stress process [ 66 ]. Stress experiences can be shared by the members of an organization, leading to an organizational stress climate [ 67 , 68 ]. Apply to job insecurity, a job insecurity climate can be perceived as a threat (primary appraisal), and if the employees perceive that they do not have the necessary resources to cope with this threat (secondary appraisal), it can be a stressful experience. More specifically, the concern about the possibility of job loss is appraised and shared among employees within an organization through the different mechanisms (e.g., socialization, interaction, attraction–selection–attrition, etc.). This promotes a shared appraisal within organizations that this uncertainty is a collective threat. This process would represent the primary appraisal of stress, according to Lazarus and Folkman [ 29 ]. Later, and according to the secondary appraisal of stress, collective stressors cannot be merely coped with by individual strategies, but organizational coping strategies are necessary. In other words, individual efforts are not enough to cope with collective stressors, unless organizational-level initiatives are provided [ 69 ]. Hence, a generalized appraisal of not able to cope with the threat emerges. In sum, people can collectively generate a collective stress [ 67 ], or climate of stress [ 70 ]; thus, shared concern about potential job loss is perceived as stressful by the members of an organization. Finally, the climate of stress is a critical factor in explaining employees’ outcomes and may lead to strain [ 70 ]. In this vein, the job insecurity climate can be associated to detrimental outcomes. Sora [ 5 , 6 ] provided empirical support for this assumption by showing a negative relationship between job insecurity climate and employee work attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction and organizational commitment) above and beyond individual perceptions of job insecurity. Låstad [ 3 ] showed a negative relationship between job insecurity climate and health and a positive association with burnout. Hsieh and Kao [ 1 ] found a positive relationship between job insecurity climate and employees’ perceived organizational obstruction. Finally, Jiang and Probst [ 57 ] presented a negative association between job insecurity climate and safety outcomes.

Climate strength : Individuals tend to share their perceptions within organizations, leading to the emergence of constructs at higher levels such as organizational climate. Yet, individual differences persist within these organizations. Rather than being considered as error variance, this within-unit variance may be conceptualized as a focal construct in itself (i.e., climate strength). In relation to job insecurity, Sora, De Cuyper, Caballer, Peiró and De Witte [ 6 ] defined the construct of climate strength as “the degree to which employees of a specific organization agree on the level of perceived job insecurity”. A “strong” job insecurity climate reflects a high degree of agreement on perceived job insecurity within an organization, while a “weak” job insecurity climate is characterized by differences in perceived job insecurity among the members of a particular organization.

These differences within organizations can also be explained through different theoretical frameworks. First, the structuralist approach addresses the emergence of shared perceptions within work units, but also recognizes the variability in the degree of work-unit agreement. Although members of an organization are under the influence of the same human resources policies and practices, it is also obvious that these can be non-specific, or applied differently within the workforce, and that variability in the level of agreement about job insecurity perceptions can therefore arise. According to Mischel [ 71 ], situations present different degrees of ambiguity. In situations with little ambiguity, individuals are more likely to perceive events in a similar way, whereas ambiguous situations may lead to differences in perceptions of the same situation. Similarly, the interactive approach to climate formation (i.e., social information theory, social comparison theory) suggests that employees tend to interact in order to communicate and discuss their perceptions [ 53 , 72 ]. This explains how the interaction process facilitates shared interpretation, and this is reflected by the organizational climate (see above). With respect to the emergence of climate strength, it can be assumed that the greater the intensity of social interaction within an organization, the stronger the agreement of climate-relevant perceptions. Finally, regarding socialization theory and attraction–selection–attrition theory, Lindell and Brandt [ 73 ] reported that, in spite of employees with similar characteristics being selected and socialized to behave in a similar way, individual differences continued to exist within work units.

As for job insecurity and job insecurity climate, the basis for climate strength is stress theory [ 29 ]. However, the direction of the relationship varies among empirical studies. Some studies have suggested that low within-organization agreement is associated with detrimental outcomes [ 40 , 74 , 75 , 76 ]. A low level of agreement (i.e., weak climate strength) can be interpreted as a work stressor in organizations [ 40 ], liable to promote higher levels of conflict and stress compared to organizations with higher levels of agreement [ 73 ].

However, a number of studies have obtained contradictory results, and this is explained by the specific evaluative tone of the consensus [ 77 ]. A strong negative climate leads to detrimental reactions in employees, whereas a strong positive climate leads to positive reactions. Given that the strength of job insecurity climate reflects the degree of agreement about negative perceptions, Sora [ 6 ] found that a strong job insecurity climate was negatively related to employee outcomes (e.g., job satisfaction, organizational commitment and organizational trust).

• Step 2. Nature of job insecurity at multiple levels of analysis

The nature of a construct represents the level of measurement needed to capture the manifestation of this construct. It is relatively straightforward to examine the nature of job insecurity at the individual level, given that the levels of theory, measurement and analysis are the same. This means that the researcher can draw conclusions and generalizations at the same level [ 10 ]. However, the nature of a collective construct is more complex, requiring the researcher to determine the type of aggregate-level measure that should be used to capture the higher-level manifestations of the construct [ 12 ]

Regarding job insecurity, we assume that, while the constructs reside at different levels, they are also related across these levels. As Morgeson and Hofmann [ 11 ] exposed, a construct may exist at multiple levels due to its isomorphic nature. In other words, a construct can have the same meaning across the different levels of analysis even when the manifestation of the construct differs across levels. This means that the nature of job insecurity constructs at higher levels is reflected by the specific composition model [ 78 ], which specifies the functional relationship between constructs at multiple levels of analysis with similar content. Chen, Mathieu and Bliese (2005, p. 380) [ 12 ] made the following observation about the role of the composition model: “the same multi-level construct can be manifested (i.e., measured) through different aggregated-level composition models, and so the particular composition model one uses should be based on one’s theory and research purpose, as well as practical considerations”.

Chan [ 78 ] proposed a typology of composition models to explain how lower-level data are used to establish constructs at higher levels. Although these forms represent the ideal types, the literature on work and organizational psychology has preferentially applied the direct consensus model to multilevel constructs; and, more recently, the dispersion model is beginning to attract attention. The present study conceptualized job insecurity climate according to the direct consensus model, and climate strength according to the dispersion model. Chen, Mathieu and Bliese [ 12 ] proposed an additional model: the aggregate properties model. Consistent with this model, we analyzed the construct job instability in the organization.

Measures of job insecurity vary across the studies in the literature according to the diversity of their definitions. The first measures of job insecurity we find in the literature are single items related to employee beliefs about retaining their current job in an unforeseeable future [ 79 , 80 ]. However, measures of job insecurity progressed as the literature began to expand, and a wide range of measurements can now be found. For example, objective job insecurity was operationalized through temporary work [ 19 , 22 , 81 ]; and subjective job insecurity was measured through diverse scales that assessed the quantitative dimension—the overall concern about potential job loss [ 19 , 82 ], or the qualitative dimension—that represents the threat of losing valued aspects of the current job [ 83 ]. Measures of cognitive and emotional job insecurity can also be found too, such as the scale developed by Pienaar [ 80 ]. Despite their differences, the referent of all these measurements and scales is the individual experience.

Job insecurity climate reflects employees’ shared concerns about the continuity of their jobs within a particular organization. This concept is isomorphic and hence analogous to job insecurity at the individual level. As explained by Bliese [ 13 ], “the aggregate maintains close links to its lower-level counterpart but nevertheless differs in subtle and important ways”. In other words, collective constructs, though qualitatively different in their essence, maintain conceptual links with their lower-level counterparts. Specifically, conceptualizations of job insecurity at the individual level and job insecurity climate at the organizational level both involve concern about job loss; however, the referent of job insecurity is the individual, whereas the referent of job insecurity climate is the collective concern of the members within an organization. We assume, therefore, that the measurement of job insecurity climate is based on a direct consensus model, and that, while job insecurity and job insecurity climate are analyzed with the same measures, they have different meanings at different levels. Operationally, job insecurity climate within an organization can be assessed by aggregating individual perceptions of job insecurity across members of the organization, with the average representing the climate level for the organization. The within-organization consensus, as indexed by agreement of lower-level perceptions, is used to compose the higher-level construct. High agreement at the lower, individual level establishes the basis for justifying the aggregation and evidencing variables at the higher, organizational levels [ 78 ], because it reflects shared perceptions and thus an emergent “climate”, as opposed to merely different idiosyncratic perceptions. In sum, consistent with Chan [ 78 ], the conceptual definition of job insecurity climate, together with the aggregate procedure and preconditions, determine the meaningfulness and validity of the operationalization of this construct at higher levels.

Climate strength is based on the notion of within-unit agreement, and consequently on the dispersion model. This model presents “the use of within-group dispersion (i.e., variance or agreement) to specify the functional relationship in composition of a dispersion construct and on the conceptual and methodological considerations” [ 78 ]. Unlike the climate concept, based on within-unit agreement, the foundation of the climate strength concept is within-unit variance. Climate strength reflects the dispersion of individuals’ perceptions in an organization, and is, therefore, an organization-level characteristic. In its operationalization, within-organization dispersion is simply the result of individual differences within the organization. Thus, job insecurity climate strength is indexed using within-organization variance or another dispersion measure of individual job insecurity response.

Job instability in the organization is understood using the aggregate properties model [ 12 ], in which the higher-level constructs are directly aligned with the higher-level unit. More specifically, the aggregate properties model represents index higher-level constructs directly aligned with the unit level of analysis. Thus, its measure is collected directly at the aggregate level (organizational level) instead of obtaining the measures from lower-level units or individuals. In this way, the level of the construct, its measurement, and its use in substantive analyses are all aligned [ 12 ]. In our case, the construct of job instability in the organization is usually measured directly at the organizational level. Job instability occurs in the aftermath of organizational events involving the reduction of the workforce. Job instability in the organization can be operationalized by ascertaining where and when such events have taken place, e.g., by asking employers about the size of the workforce in recent times, and inquiring about measures usually associated with job instability (e.g., downsizing, mergers, layoffs, etc.).

2.1. Procedure

Samples were selected from two European countries, Spain and Austria, in order to provide major support to our results and to facilitate their extrapolation. These countries present different cultures. Cultural values are more strongly associated to one’s nation than to organization, individual personality or religion [ 84 , 85 ]. In fact, cultural values serve as “guiding principles in the life of a person or other social entity” [ 14 ] and they influence how individuals perceive, set goals and interpret relationships, expectations, demands, and duties in the workplace [ 86 ] Triandis (1996) proposed that individualism and collectivism values are important lenses through which to view psychological functioning [ 87 ]. Individualistic cultures focus on individual independence, individual goals, autonomy, and pay attention to the costs and benefits of relationships, while collectivist cultures emphasize the welfare of the group, the goals of the ingroup and define the self as interdependent [ 87 ]. Extended research has evidenced how cultural values affect work-related factors, such as work stress and job satisfaction. For example, Huang and Van de Vliert (2004) showed a link between job satisfaction and job status in individualist cultures, but not in collectivist ones [ 88 ]. Klassen [ 86 ] found that job stress was negatively associated to job satisfaction for North American teachers (individualist culture), and collectivism values were associated to job satisfaction for Korean teachers. In this sense, Spain presents a tendency towards collectivism and Austria towards individualism [ 89 ]. There are also differences between the two countries in terms of their economies and labor markets. The Austrian labor market is more stable with lower rates of unemployment and temporary employment compared to Spain. In fact, at the time of our investigation in 2011, Spain was more significantly affected by the world financial crisis. Among the countries of the European Union, Spain presented the highest and Austria the lowest unemployment rate. The unemployment rate in Spain in 2011 was about 21%—compared to about 4% in Austria [ 90 ].

In both countries, researchers sought the collaboration of the human resources departments of a number of organizations. The purpose of the research and main features of the questionnaire were explained, guaranteeing anonymity and confidentiality. Once organizations had agreed to collaborate, all their employees who wished to participate were invited to complete questionnaires, one type for the employees and another for the employers. The questionnaires were distributed at the workplaces. Most of employees and employers filled in the questionnaires in the moment of receiving them. Research assistants were present where participants filled in the questionnaires, and they could clarify any doubt or question. Those participants, who could not fill in the questionnaire at that moment, could fill in this later. More specifically, one week later, the research assistant came back to the workplace to collect these filled questionnaires. Only an employer per organization completed the questionnaire in representation of the organization. A wholly random sampling method was not possible, given the reliance on voluntary participation.

All subjects gave their informed consent for inclusion before they participated in the study. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the protocol followed the guidelines of the Ethics Committee of our university.

2.2. Sample

The total sample was made up of 1435 employees from 138 organizations, selected from four labor sectors (construction, retail, health care and education), and two European countries, Spain and Austria.

The Spanish subsample was composed of 927 employees (65%) and 88 organizations (64%), with a construction sector component of 16 organizations (18%) and 136 employees (15%), a retail sector component of 31 organizations (35%) and 278 employees (30%), a health care sector component of 16 organizations (18%) and 205 employees (22%), and an education sector component of 25 organizations (28%) and 308 employees (33%). Eighteen of the organizations were public (21%) and 67 were private (76%); 584 of the employees were women (63%), and 317 were men (34%), with a mean age of 39 years (SD = 10.19). Permanent contracts were held by 78% of the employees ( n = 724), and 21% had temporary contracts ( n = 193).

The Austrian subsample consisted of 508 employees (35%) and 50 organizations (36%), with a construction sector industry composed of 10 organizations (20%) and 84 employees (16%), a retail sector component of 16 organizations (32%) and 165 employees (32%), a health care sector component of 11 organizations (22%) and 126 employees (25%), and an education sector component of 13 organizations (26%) and 133 employees (26%). Fifteen of the organizations were public (26%) and 30 were private (52%); 315 of the employees were women (62%) and 179 were men (35%), with a mean age of 37 years (SD = 11.56). Permanent contracts were held by 78% percent of the employees ( n = 396), and 20% had temporary contracts ( n = 102).

2.3. Measures

As previously mentioned, two different questionnaires were distributed, one for employees and another for employers. In the employee’s questionnaire, the following variables were measured: subjective and objective job insecurity and job satisfaction; whereas in the employer’s questionnaire, we measured job instability in the organization and nature of the organization.

Subjective job insecurity at the individual level was measured using a four-item scale proposed by De Witte (2000) [ 91 ]: (1) “It is very likely that I will soon lose my job”; (2) “I feel insecure about the future of my job”; (3) “I think I might lose my job in the near future”; (4) “I am sure I can keep my job”. The response options varied from 1 (“strongly disagree”) to 5 (“strongly agree”). Although the multilevel construct validation method [ 12 ] does not include the analysis of measurement invariance, we examinate this issue to clarify that there is a measurement equivalence in our cross-cultural sample [ 92 ]. Three models were tested through multigroup CFA, which progressively fixed the number of items and factors (configural invariance—M0), the factor loads (metric invariance—M1) and the intercepts (scalar invariance—M3). The tested model should not present differences in Chi-squared (ΔChi-sqaured), CFI (ΔCFI) < 0.01, McDonald’s NCI (ΔMcDonald’s NCI) < 0.02, RMSEA (ΔCFI) < 0.01 when compared to previous models [ 93 ]. Results showed non-differences for factor loadings between countries when configural invariance and the metric invariance models were compared (Δchi-square = 42.23 (Δdf = 3; p = 0.00), ΔCFI = 0.01, ΔMc NCI = 0.01, and ΔRMSEA = 0.01). The comparison between the metric invariance and the scalar invariance models also presented non-differences for item intercepts: Δchi-square = 60.49 (Δdf = 3; p = 0.00), ΔCFI = 0.01, ΔMc NCI =0.02, and ΔRMSEA = 0.01. It is necessary to mention that Chi-squared index is especially sensitive to the sample size [ 94 ], and as well as being an extremely stringent test of invariance for models in CFA [ 95 ]. Thus, measurement invariance was supported.

Objective job insecurity at the individual level was assessed according to the type of contract, whether temporary or permanent [ 22 ]. The following question was used to elicit employee status: “Do you have a permanent contract with this organization?”, with the option to respond either “No” or “Yes”. This variable was coded as a dummy variable: 0 for temporary employment and 1 for permanent employment.

Job insecurity climate measurement was obtained through a data aggregation process, as broadly explained in step 2. In sum, individual scores for job insecurity were aggregated at the organizational level. In step 3, we also computed within-organization agreement and between-organization variance to validate this construct at the organizational level.

Climate strength of job insecurity was measured as the degree of agreement on perceived job insecurity among employees from a specific organization, as mentioned in step 2. The average deviation index (ADMj) was used for this purpose, as suggested by González-Romá [ 41 ]. This index was multiplied by −1, so that higher scores of climate strength reflected high within-organization agreement, and low scores of climate strength reflected low within-organization agreement.

Job instability in the organization . The employer of each participant organization responded to a set of questions in relation to job instability in their organization. Specifically, we asked employers to respond to two key questions, the first of which was, “In the past three years, have there been any changes in the number of employees?”, to which there were three possible answers: (1) “Yes, the number of employees increased”; (2) “Yes, the number of employees decreased”; and (3) “No, there were no significant changes in the number of employees”. The second question was, “Which of the following measures have been adopted by your organization in the last three years?”. Employers had to indicate all the measures adopted from the following list: (1) downsizing; (2) record of employment regulation; (3) merger; (4) closure of centers and/or departments; and (5) early retirement plans. Job instability in the organization was codified as a dummy variable based on the combination of these items. High job instability was reflected by reduction in the number of employees and some of the organizational events. Any of the other combinations, for example, reduction descent in the number of employees but no organizational events, or no reduction in the number of employees combined with a presence or lack of organizational events, were coded as no job instability in the organization. This combination was necessary because it is possible for that organizational measures to be adopted without involving a workforce reduction; or an organization might experience a workforce reduction, not as a result of extraordinary measures, but because employees have decided to retire or some temporary contracts have expired. The variable was a dummy coded as 1 for job instability, and 0 for no job stability. The Austrian sample presented six organizations with job instability (16%), while the Spanish sample presented 22 organizations with job instability (35%).

To test step 5, additional measures were used to examine the correlates of job insecurity at multiple levels (function of the construct across levels of analysis). Hence, the construct of job insecurity at multiple levels was related to variables measured at the organizational level, such as nature of organization, and variables measured at the individual level, such as job satisfaction. The following measures were used:

Nature of organization was considered as a dummy variable, coded as 1 for private organization, and 0 for public organization.

Job satisfaction was assessed with a four-item scale [ 96 ] with items such as, “I find enjoyment in my job”, and a response range from 1 (low) to 5 (high). Cronbach’s alpha for this scale was 0.79 in the Spanish sample and 0.70 in the Austrian sample. Regarding measurement invariance, both the comparison between the configural invariance and the metric invariance models showed non-differences for factor loadings (Δchi-square = 18.31 (Δdf = 3; p = 0.00), ΔCFI = 0.01, ΔMc NCI = 0.005, and ΔRMSEA = 0.003) and the comparison between the metric invariance and the scalar invariance models indicated non-differences for items intercepts (Δchi-square = 48.94 (Δdf = 3; p = 0.00), ΔCFI = 0.03, ΔMc NCI = 0.01, and ΔRMSEA = 0.01). Only, the ΔCFI in the comparison between the metric invariance and the scalar invariance models did not meet the cut-off criteria. However, it was quite close and taking into account that the other indexes supported their invariance, we concluded that measurement invariance was supported. In addition, this variable was also examined at the organizational level, with data aggregated according to multilevel methodology guidelines [ 80 ]. The rWG(J) [ 97 ] index of agreement and the average deviation index (AD) [ 98 ]; Burke, Finkelstein, and Dusig, 1999) were computed to determine whether the individual data were sufficiently homogeneous to be aggregated. The results indicated a good level of agreement among employees within their organizations regarding job satisfaction. The mean and median values of rWG(J) were higher than the cut-off of 0.70 in both samples (James et al., 1993; 1984): Spain, mean = 0.79 and median = 0.85; Austria, mean = 0.77 and median = 0.84. The mean and median AD index values also met the criteria, being lower than the cut-off of 0.83 [ 98 , 99 ]. Specifically, in the Spanish sample, the mean and median AD score was 0.62, and in the Austrian sample, the mean was 0.68 and the median was 0.71.

• Step 3. Psychometric properties of constructs across levels of analysis

Multilevel constructs require additional evidence about their psychometric properties, such as factor structure, inter-member agreement or reliability of measurements [ 12 ]. Measures for objective job insecurity and job instability in organizations were composed of raw scores with only one item, and climate strength was composed using an AD index. Accordingly, the analyses of psychometric properties (e.g., factor structure, internal consistency) were not possible for these last measures.

Factor structure. The hierarchical structure in the data of multilevel constructs can involve special requirements in the analysis of their factor structures. Firstly, the independence assumption of the data is violated. Secondly, the nature of the construct can vary across the levels of analysis; therefore, the dimensionality properties and validity may also vary across these levels. In this respect, composition models assume isomorphism, operating practically equally at higher and lower levels of analysis. Finally, the consensus models are considered as valid when there is an adequate level of agreement within the group. In an attempt to deal with these issues, Muthen (1990, 1994) [ 100 ] proposed a procedure for performing multilevel confirmatory factor analysis (MCFA), explicitly considering the aggregate nature of the measure. Muthen (1990, 1994) [ 100 ] proposed a series of steps to perform MCFA: (1) compute conventional factor analysis; (2) estimation of between variation; (3) estimation of within structure; and (4) estimation of between structure. The final step is the multilevel confirmatory factor analysis itself. We performed MCFA to examine the structure of subjective job insecurity and job insecurity climate at organizational level, using Mplus Version 5.0 [ 100 ] in both the Spanish and Austrian samples.

First, a conventional confirmatory factor analysis was computed using the total sample matrix. A one-factor model with paths from the latent construct (subjective job insecurity) to all four items was tested. Overall goodness-of-fit for the models was assessed using a Chi-squared likelihood ratio, normed comparative fit index (CFI) [ 101 ], Tucker–Lewis index (TLI) [ 102 ], root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) [ 103 ], and the standardized root mean square residual (SRMR). Although the Chi-squared likelihood ratio was significant, the values of the other indexes indicated an adequate fit (see Table 1 ). Values of CFI and TLI higher than 0.95 were judged to be an acceptable fit in both the Spanish and Austrian samples. RMSEA and SRMR were judged to be appropriate when lower than 0.08 [ 104 ]. In both samples, SRMR values met the criteria, though only the Austrian RMSEA was lower than 0.08; the Spanish RMSEA was slightly higher (0.12). The standardized factor loadings for this model are presented in Table 2 . All loadings were significant, suggesting that all items adequately reflected the latent construct of job insecurity in both samples.

Model fit for a priori single- and multilevel models.

df = degrees of freedom, CFI = comparative fit index, TLI = Tucker-Lewis index, RMSEA = root mean square error of approximation, SRMR = standardized root mean square residual. W = within-organization portion of the model, B = between-organization portion of the model.

Standardized factor loadings from a priori single- and multilevel models and intraclass correlations (ICC) by scale item.

Secondly, an estimation of within- and between-organization variance was computed through interclass correlation coefficients (ICC) for each item in both samples. Table 2 presents the results. In the Spanish sample, ICCs ranged from 0.33 to 0.44 with an average ICC of 0.39. In the Austrian sample, ICCs ranged from 0.02 to 0.12 with an average ICC of 0.08. Following Dyer [ 105 ] procedure, we compared it to the standard ICC(1) values reported by James [ 106 ], which tend to range between 0.00 and 0.50, with a median value of 0.12. Similarly, Dedrick and Greenbaum [ 107 ] suggested 0.10 as a possible cut-off value. Our ICC values were relatively higher in the Spanish sample whereas, in the Austrian sample, ICC values were around or greater than 0.10, except for item 4. There was, therefore, sufficient between-organization variability to warrant a multilevel methodology in the Spanish sample, but this was less evident in the Austrian sample. Multilevel analyses were computed in both samples, but the results for the Austrian results must be interpreted with caution.

Thirdly, according to Chen [ 12 ], it is advisable to compute the within- and between-level models separately prior to estimating the full two-levels model (steps 3 and 4). Within- and between-organization covariance matrices were used to perform these analyses of disaggregate factor structure. In the within-organization covariance matrix, the between-organization variability was removed as the between-organization covariance matrix only reflected this variability. Thus, the pooled within-organization covariance matrix was estimated based on individual deviations around the organization means, while the between-organization covariance matrix was based on the organization means and their deviations around the grand mean. Two single-level confirmatory factor analyses were computed in both Spanish and Austrian samples, one on the sample pooled-within covariance matrix, and the other on the sample between covariance matrix. The goodness-of-fit indices for the model at within and between levels presented an appropriate fit in both Spanish and Austrian samples. The loadings of both analyses differed significantly from zero in both samples. Being very similar in value to the estimates from the final multilevel model, these loadings are not reported in Table 2 .

Finally, the multilevel confirmatory factor analysis (MCFA) was performed. The model consisted of two factors, one at the within-organization level (i.e., job insecurity), and the other at the between-organization level (i.e., job insecurity climate). Worthy of note is that the residual variance of item 4 at the between level was fixed to zero to avoid a negative variance estimate. According to Dyer [ 108 ], it is often necessary to fix the residual variances at the between level in MFCA when the true between-group residual variance is close to zero, which is the case for item 4 in our Spanish sample. Residual variances were also fixed for the four items in the Austrian sample. The results showed a good fit, similar to the previous analyses (see Table 1 ). The factor loadings were also significant at both within- and between-levels in both samples. Only item 4 at the within-level in the Austrian sample was not significant. The items loaded more strongly onto the latent factor at between-level (job insecurity climate) than at within-level (job insecurity) in both samples. The factor loadings ranged from 0.59 to 0.80 and from 0.13 to 0.81 at within-level, and from 0.70 to 1.00 and 0.99 to 1.00 at between-level in Spanish and Austrian samples, respectively ( Table 2 ). Higher loadings at the between-organization level compared to those at the within-organization level provided support to the one-factor model across levels, confirming the multilevel model.

Within-unit agreement. The focal level for construct validity in composition models is the aggregated level. Two different procedures were used to determine whether the individual data were sufficiently homogeneous to be aggregated: James [ 97 ] rWG(J) and the average deviation index [ 98 , 99 ]. The rWG(J) index compares the actual within-unit variance with the expected variance from random responding. The uniform distribution is usually used as recommended by James [ 109 ]. In other words, this index considers the extent to which the variability of unit members’ responses presents less dispersion than would be exhibited by chance. The AD index relies on the average standard deviation of items. It does not need explicit modeling of the null random response distribution, which offers an advantage compared to the previous index.

The results showed an appropriate level of within-organization agreement in relation to perceived job insecurity. The mean and median values of rWG(J) were, respectively, 0.70 and 0.83 in the Spanish sample, and 0.81 and 0.86 in the Austrian sample. These indices were higher than the extended cut-off value of 0.70 [ 97 , 109 ]. All AD values were lower than the recommended value of 0.83 for a five-item scale [ 99 ]. The mean and median values were, respectively, 0.73 and 0.72 in the Spanish sample, and 0.61 and 0.62 in the Austrian sample.

Reliability. The reliability of the measures across levels must be analyzed considering the multiple levels, while the reliability of individual measures and aggregate properties should be examined separately. According to Chen [ 108 ], an analysis of psychometric properties must be aligned with the level of analysis. Assuming an adequate degree of agreement for the aggregation, the average item response per organization was computed and the scale reliability was then examined at the aggregate level of analysis (i.e., Cronbach’s alpha).

All alpha values were higher than the commonly accepted cut-off criterion of 0.70 [ 110 ]. Specifically, Cronbach’s alpha was 0.89 and 0.80 for subjective job insecurity at individual level, and 0.93 and 0.88 for job insecurity climate at organizational level in the Spanish and Austrian samples, respectively. However, Cronbach’s alpha should not only be interpreted on the basis of its value, but also considering the number of items in scale [ 111 ]. Hence, inter-item and item-total correlations were examined. The results were equivalent for the measure of job insecurity at individual and organizational level. All inter-item and item-total correlations were higher than 30 in both samples (see Table 3 ). Thus, all obtained indices surpassed the minimum value of 0.20 proposed by Streiner [ 112 ]. Indeed, all our values exceeded the more stringent cut-off criterion of 0.30 suggested by Cortina [ 111 ]. In summary, reliability or internal consistency may be considered as appropriate for subjective job insecurity and job insecurity climate.

Inter-item and item-total correlations for job insecurity at multiple levels.

• Step 4. Construct variability between units

As mentioned above, consensus models require an adequate level of inter-member agreement, which justifies the aggregation of ratings within units to a higher-level measure [ 108 ]. Inter-member reliability is also necessary, however. Inter-member agreement and reliability provide complementary but different information. Inter-member reliability refers to the extent to which within-unit ratings are proportional (but not identical), whereas within-unit agreement indicates the extent to which within-unit ratings are essentially the same [ 113 ].

To test this inter-member reliability, interclass correlations (ICCs) are usually computed. ICC(1) presents the proportion of total variance that can be explained by group membership, in other words, the extent to which within-unit variance is small relative to between-units variance. ICC(2) indicates the degree to which group means can be reliably differentiated. This index reliably detects phenomena among groups that are not detectable by individual-level measures. ICC(1) and ICC(2) values were 0.26 and 0.79, respectively, in the Spanish sample; while in the Austrian sample, ICC(1) and ICC(2) values were 0.11 and 0.57. Both indices presented good reliability in both samples compared to previous research [ 114 ].

Finally, Bliese [ 13 ] also recommends examining the between-unit variability. Significant between-unit differences support the assumption that the consistency of responses within each unit is greater than the consistency across larger contexts. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) can establish the between-organization differences in perceived job insecurity in both samples. The results (Spain: F(87, 826) = 4.79, p < 0.01; Austria: F(48, 452) = 2.33, p < 0.01) indicated significant between-organizational differences. Hence, ratings presented greater consistency within each organization than consistency across larger contexts.

• Step 5. Construct function across levels of analysis

The multi-level construct function involves examination of theoretical models of its relationships with other constructs at different levels of analysis. Such variables can be other multi-level constructs or single-level constructs. It allows us to examine the similarities and dissimilarities in relationships with the construct (job insecurity) at different levels of analysis. In fact, according to Chan (1998) [ 80 ], the function of constructs may be similar across levels. Isomorphic constructs with similar meanings across levels probably have homologous relations across levels. The proper alignment of constructs across levels is a key factor in enhancing validity and generalizability [ 12 , 115 ].

Hence, this model not only involves antecedents, correlates and outcomes of the construct across different levels of analysis, but it also includes relationships between different constructs of job insecurity at different levels. Specifically, Figure 1 displays the proposed multi-level model concerning job insecurity across levels of analysis. This model included job instability in an organization (aggregate properties model), job insecurity climate (direct consensus model) and climate strength (dispersion model) at organizational level, subjective job insecurity and objective job insecurity at individual level, and how these are interrelated. The model further presents antecedent factors and outcomes at individual and organizational level. As organizational antecedents, the model includes organization nature, and presents collective and individual job satisfaction as organizational and individual outcome. These variables were selected because they were theoretically related constructs and previous literature had provided a large empirical support to these relationships at individual level.

Multi-level model of job insecurity. Note: Continuous lines reflect the significant relationships between variables in one or both samples. Dashed lines represent the non-significant relationships in any sample.

Antecedents: Organization nature , understood as public vs. private organization, was reported by employers at organizational level and represented an antecedent at the organizational level. Research has associated the public sector with relatively more secure jobs compared to the private sector [ 116 ]. For example, the Spanish public sector hires its employees through different types of contract: career civil servant and permanent and temporary employment. The firing of career civil servants is only possible in very extreme cases as they are safeguarded against arbitrary removal from office. Since the labor reform in 2012, the laying off of permanent public employees can be justified for economic, technical, organizational or production reasons. However, the public sector applies alternative organizational measures in preference to permanent workforce downsizing, such as reduction of social benefits or wage freezes. In this respect, Rosenblatt and Mannheim [ 117 , 118 ] reported that public-sector organizations used significantly more non-layoff cutback strategies than private-sector organizations. In contrast, private organizations hire their employees according to their personal merits and the demands of the labor market [ 116 ]. Hence, De Witte [ 19 ] reported that public employees tend to experience less concern with outright layoff and more concern with losing the job “as they know it” (for example, through reassignment or withdrawal of job prerogatives), compared to private sector employees, who experienced more concern about losing the whole job. Following this evidence, we propose the following hypothesis:

Private organizations present higher levels of job instability in the organization (H1a), job insecurity climate (H1b), subjective job insecurity (H1c), objective job insecurity (H1d), and weaker job insecurity climate (H1e).

Outcomes: Collective and individual job satisfaction.

Multiple conceptualizations of job insecurity are associated with job satisfaction, according to stress theory [ 29 ]. Job satisfaction at the individual level reflects “an internal state that is expressed by affectively and cognitively evaluating an experienced job with some degree of favor or disfavor” [ 119 ]. However, Brief (1998) also suggested that this definition could be adapted to represent a construct at a higher level of analysis, such as collective job satisfaction [ 119 ]. Hence, Whitman, Van Rooy, and Viswesvaran (2010, p.46) defined collective job satisfaction as a “work unit’s shared internal state that is expressed by affectively and cognitively evaluating shared job experiences with some degree of favor or disfavor” [ 120 ]. Collective job satisfaction involves a general predisposition of employees within an organization to collaborate, share, and accept organizational goals [ 119 ]. Therefore, collective job satisfaction, understood as the aggregation of individual perceptions of job satisfaction, represents an outcome at the organizational level, whereas individual job satisfaction reflects an outcome at the individual level. Low collective and individual job satisfaction reflect withdrawal behavior in response to job insecurity stressors at both individual (e.g., subjective and objective job insecurity) and organizational levels (e.g., job insecurity climate, strength climate, and job instability in the organization). Empirical studies support the relationship between different conceptualizations of job insecurity and job satisfaction. Regarding job satisfaction at the individual level, most of the research to date has demonstrated a negative relationship between job insecurity and job satisfaction [ 121 ], job insecurity climate and job satisfaction [ 5 ], and climate strength and job satisfaction [ 6 ].

However, to the best of our knowledge, no study has examined the relationship between job insecurity and job satisfaction across or at higher levels. Following the previous research and, according to stress theory [ 29 ], we propose that the multiple conceptualizations of job insecurity at the organizational level may also be associated with lower levels of individual job satisfaction:

High organizational job instability (H2a), job insecurity climate (H2b), and weaker climate strength (H2c) are associated with lower collective job satisfaction.

High organizational job instability (H3a), job insecurity climate (H3b), weaker climate strength (H3c), objective job insecurity (H3d), and subjective job insecurity (H3e) are negatively related to individual job satisfaction.

Relationship between different constructs of job insecurity at multiple levels . Organizational job instability, as stated previously, refers to an organizational context in which a downsizing event or practice has taken place, and there is an overlap in the literature on downsizing and job insecurity, as well as a clear linkage in practice [ 122 ]. Furthermore, the relationship between downsizing—the core of job instability in this paper—and job insecurity was underpinned by different theoretical frameworks. According to the expectancy theory [ 123 ], employees provide services (input) to their organizations, and in turn they expect this to be reciprocated with certain organizational rewards (outcomes). Whitener (1998) highlighted job security as one of these organizational rewards [ 124 ]. The social exchange theory [ 125 ] also involves implicit rewards in the form of mutual commitment, though no economic payoff is involved. This mutual reciprocity requires an employer to commit to employee job security to win the organizational commitment of employees in return [ 123 , 126 ]. In addition, as mentioned in step 1, job security represents an expectation within the psychological contract, and job threat by downsizing involves a breach of that psychological contract [ 126 ].

However, this perception of job insecurity in a downsizing context must not be understood merely as an individual and isolated experience. In a context characterized by workforce reduction, the uncertainty and possibility of job loss is perceived as a real possibility for all employees in that organization. In other words, downsizing can represent a breach of psychological contract for all employees within an organization as well as an imbalance in the exchange relationship between organization and employees, understood as a collective. Hence, it is possible that a general and shared concern of job insecurity can emerge within an organization—a strong job insecurity climate. Following this reasoning, we hypothesize the following:

Job instability is positively related to subjective job insecurity (H4a), objective job insecurity (H4b), job insecurity climate (H4c), and climate strength (H4d).

Objective job insecurity. As stated in step 1 above, objective job insecurity may be understood as a work stressor, according to stress theory [ 29 ], or a breach of the psychological contract [ 22 , 33 ]. In fact, the literature on job insecurity has shown a well-established association between objective and subjective job insecurity, as can be observed in the meta-analyses of Shoss [ 127 ] and Sverke [ 18 ]. Temporary employees are not part of the core of the organization, and therefore are probably more at risk of losing their jobs; moreover, they are employed by the organization for a limited time according to a temporary contract. Hence, temporary employees experience higher levels of job insecurity compared to permanent employees [ 18 , 28 ]. Accordingly, we hypothesized the following:

Objective job insecurity is negatively related to job insecurity. Temporary employees perceive higher levels of subjective job insecurity.

Different methods are used to examine these similarities and dissimilarities in the relationships between multilevel constructs across levels of analysis. On the one hand, multiple random coefficient models were computed to examine the linear relationships suggested in the multilevel model. On the other, multilevel logistic regressions were computed for objective job insecurity and job instability in the organization. These variables were dichotomous (dummy) and required to estimate a generalized mixed-effects model rather than a linear mixed-effects model [ 128 ].

Random coefficient models are used to apply different cross-validation principles to examine the extent to which relationships at one level of analysis may generalize to another level of analysis. Other methods, such as WABA or multilevel SEM, are also used to test for similarities and dissimilarities in multilevel theoretical models. However, these methods may be more limiting, especially in relation to aggregated constructs by dispersion or aggregate properties models [ 12 , 108 ]. We also previously computed multilevel prerequisites 86, and group-level properties of outcome variables were computed using ICC(1) values. ICC(1) shows the proportion of the variance in the outcomes that was explained by organizational membership. Indeed, the ICC(1) values obtained were 0.25 and 0.15, for job insecurity and job satisfaction, respectively, in the Spanish sample, and 0.13 and 0.12 in the Austrian sample. In order to examine the intercept variation in outcomes variables, the Chi-square likelihood test was performed, comparing one model with random intercept and another without. Models with random intercepts were significantly higher than those without, in the Spanish sample (job insecurity, −2 log likelihood = 165.69, p < 0.01; job satisfaction, 2 log likelihood = 82.21, p < 0.01) as well as in the Austrian sample (job insecurity, −2 log likelihood = 20.40, p < 0.01; job satisfaction, 2 log likelihood = 14.83, p < 0.01). All these indices suggested significant intercept variations in the outcome variables. Overall, it could be concluded that the prerequisites for performing the multilevel analysis were met.

Multilevel logistic regression models were performed to appropriately address organization- and individual-level effects on objective job insecurity and job instability in the organization. As previously mentioned, multilevel logistic regression models can be conducted with dichotomous dependent variables, such as job insecurity and job instability in the organization variables. Hence, the multilevel models are random-intercept models designed to assess the effects of explanatory variables on mean differences in objective job insecurity and job instability in the organization across organizations.

Finally, all continuous variables were centered to reduce risk of multicollinearity [ 129 ]. Note that analyses were performed using the random coefficient model program “lme” and the mixed-effects logistic model program “glmer” from R software (version 3.5.3) (R Core Team, 2020) [ 130 ].

Results (see Table 4 ) suggested that organization nature was positively related to subjective job insecurity in the Spanish sample. Spanish private organizations presented higher levels of subjective job insecurity. Furthermore, objective job insecurity was negatively related to subjective job insecurity in both the Spanish and Austrian samples. Temporary employees experienced higher levels of job insecurity compared to permanent employees. Finally, job instability was negatively related to climate strength in the Spanish sample. Organizations with high job instability also presented weaker climates of job insecurity.

Summary of analyses predicting job insecurity at multiple levels.

Note: PE, parameter estimate. SE, standard error. Objective job insecurity (0 temporary; 1 permanent). Organization nature (0 public organization; 1 private organization). Analyses are random coefficient models for all outcomes, except for objective job insecurity and job instability, which were multilevel logistic regressions.

Regarding outcomes at higher levels (see Table 5 ), job instability in an organization was positively related to collective job satisfaction in both the Spanish and Austrian samples. Climate strength was negatively related to collective job satisfaction in both samples, but job insecurity climate was only negatively related to collective job satisfaction in the Austrian sample. In terms of outcomes at the individual level, our results showed a non-significant relationship between the different conceptualizations of job insecurity at higher levels (namely job instability in an organization, job insecurity climate, and climate strength) and individual job satisfaction in both the Spanish and Austrian samples. However, individual subjective job insecurity was negatively related to individual job satisfaction in both samples, while objective job insecurity was only negatively related to individual job satisfaction in the Spanish sample. Spanish permanent employees reported lower levels of individual job satisfaction compared to Spanish temporary employees.

Random coefficient models predicting collective and individual job satisfaction.

Note: PE, parameter estimate. SE, standard error. Objective job insecurity (0 temporary; 1 permanent).

3. Discussion

Despite the accumulation and proliferation of studies on job insecurity from different theories and methodologies, research has yet to develop an integrative framework. To do so, this study set out to examine the main constructs related to job insecurity, linking job insecurity with multilevel theory. More specifically, we used advanced multilevel methods aimed at conceptualizing and testing multilevel job insecurity constructs [ 12 ]. We directly tested homologous multilevel models and provide evidence for similarities and dissimilarities in models of job insecurity at different levels of analysis in two different European countries—Spain and Austria.

In keeping with the basic principles of multilevel theory [ 12 ], our first objective was to define the focal construct at each relevant level of analysis. More specifically, we defined job insecurity at the individual level, understood as a subjective perception and an objective construct we referred to as subjective job insecurity and objective job insecurity, operationalized by temporary employment contracts. Regarding collective constructs, we highlighted job instability in the organization, job insecurity climate, and climate strength.

With the second step, we specified the nature and the structure of the construct at multiple levels of analysis. The structure and nature of job insecurity was explained in terms of the level of theory, the level of measurement and the level of analyses, which coincided at the individual level. However, the structure and nature of the constructs at higher levels were addressed through the composition model [ 78 ] and the aggregate properties model [ 12 ]. Job insecurity climate was explained in terms of a direct consensus model, climate strength in terms of a dispersion model, and job instability in the organization according to an aggregate properties model.

At the third step, we tested the psychometric properties of the constructs across and/or at different levels of analysis (e.g., the factor structure, inter-member agreement, and reliability of measurements). The results supported the validity and reliability of job insecurity as a global factor structure across different levels in both the Spanish and Austrian samples.

At step 4, the results confirmed that the construct varies between levels of analysis in both the Spanish and the Austrian sample. In other words, between-organizational differences were found concerning levels of job insecurity. Our findings revealed that job insecurity can be an emergent collective property of organizations.

Finally, at step 5, we tested the function of the focal construct across different levels of analysis. According to multilevel research [ 131 ], the combined investigation of structure and function is essential for developing concrete and meaningful multilevel constructs. These results shed light on the common antecedents and outcomes at different levels, as well as the relationships among them. Hence, Hypothesis 1, which proposes that organization nature is an organizational antecedent of job insecurity at the individual level (H1c), was partially confirmed in the Spanish sample. In Spain, private organizations present higher levels of subjective job insecurity compared to public organizations. These results were congruent with the previous literature on job insecurity [ 7 , 19 , 116 , 132 ].

Hypothesis 2 was supported in the Austrian sample, and partially supported in the Spanish sample. Most of the collective constructs of job insecurity were significantly related to collective job satisfaction. Organizations with job instability (H2a), higher levels of job insecurity climate (H2b) or weaker job insecurity climate (H2c) were associated with higher collective job satisfaction in the Austrian sample. In the Spanish sample, only job instability in an organization (H2a) and climate strength (H2c) were significantly related to collective job satisfaction. These results are congruent with the stress theory of Lazarus and Folkman [ 29 ], in which these constructs of job insecurity are perceived as contextual stressors. They also support the literature on job insecurity from a multilevel perspective [ 5 , 6 ]

Hypothesis 3, which proposed the relationships with individual job satisfaction, was also partially confirmed. Subjective job insecurity (H3e) was supported in both the Spanish and the Austrian sample. High levels of subjective job insecurity were associated with lower individual job satisfaction in both Spanish and Austrian employees. These results are congruent with the literature on job insecurity [ 18 , 121 , 127 ]. Furthermore, objective job insecurity (H3d) was only confirmed in the Spanish sample, and in the opposite direction. In other words, the results indicated that Spanish permanent employees were less satisfied than temporary Spanish employees. Although these results are not congruent with either of our theoretical frameworks, stress theory [ 29 ] or psychological contract theory, previous empirical studies have evidenced that temporary employees can show more positive work outcomes than permanent employees [ 22 , 133 ]. Sora [ 22 ] suggested that the contextual situation could provide an explanation of these results. A positive association between temporary employment and work outcomes seems more feasible in a prosperous financial context, where job opportunities are numerous and temporary employment might be perceived as less demanding than permanent employment. An alternative explanation could be found in the different types of temporary employment, such as fixed-term, on-call, or independent contractors [ 134 , 135 ]. However, the results were not consistent. Klandermans [ 135 ] reported that the outcomes of job insecurity varied according to employment type; whereas Bernhard-Oettel [ 134 ] found no differences in employee outcomes as a function of their type of temporary employment. Additional research is therefore necessary to clarify the relationship between objective and subjective job insecurity.

Hypothesis 4, which proposed the relationship between job instability in the organization and job insecurity climate, climate strength, subjective job insecurity and objective job insecurity, was only supported in relation to climate strength in the Spanish sample. Job instability in the organization was negatively related to climate strength; hence, Spanish organizations with high job instability presented weaker climates of job insecurity. These results are congruent with the literature on climate strength, which reports that weaker climates are more detrimental and stressful for employees [ 40 , 75 , 76 ]. It seems plausible that downsizing events within organizations promote higher levels of uncertainty about job permanency, hence we find higher dispersion and differences in perceived job insecurity according to the employee’s job and personal characteristics.

Hypothesis 5 was supported in both samples. Temporary employees reported higher levels of subjective job insecurity compared to permanent employees. This is congruent with the literature on job insecurity [ 18 , 127 ], which states that temporary employment does not represent the core of an organization’s workforce. Temporary employees are perceived as more expendable and with more potential for job loss compared to permanent workers, hence temporary employees experience higher levels of job insecurity compared to permanent workers.

Taken together, this work contributes to job insecurity research by examining and validating the nature of job insecurity construct at higher levels. Job insecurity phenomenon must be conceptualized not only as an individual perception, but also as a collective experience that is shared among employees within an organization. Analogous to individual job insecurity, job insecurity at higher levels can be conceptualized from objective and subjective perspectives. Therefore, job instability in organizations can represent an objective and collective job insecurity within organization, whereas job insecurity climate would reflect a collective and subjective phenomenon. Finally, it is critical to highlight that job insecurity at higher levels must be understood as content and strength.

Job insecurity at higher levels was presented as a contextual stressor. Despite theoretical models of job insecurity at multiple levels have proposed similar antecedents and outcomes across levels [ 1 , 3 , 5 , 6 , 57 ], this work showed both similarities and dissimilarities in the models of job insecurity at different levels. The results suggested that the antecedents and outcomes of job insecurity at the individual level were not necessarily the same for job insecurity at the organizational level; that is, job insecurity at the organizational level was not isomorphic to job insecurity at the individual level. As Chen [ 108 ] suggested, “the assumption of homology is too often assumed and too rarely tested”. Thus, our results reveal a possible need to rethink the theoretical assumption of homology in multilevel models of job insecurity. Findings from research on job insecurity at individual levels cannot necessarily be generalized to job insecurity at higher levels, and vice versa.

This study also evidenced the differences among European countries by finding variety in the relationships between multilevel job insecurity constructs in function of country. Whereas the associations between job insecurity at multiple levels and job satisfaction at multiple levels were similar in Spain and Austria, the effect of the organizations and countries’ characteristics on employees varied in function of country. More specifically, the results showed non-significant relationships between organizations and countries’ characteristics in Austria compared to Spain, where significant associations between organization nature and subjective job insecurity, job instability in organization and climate strength, and objective job insecurity and job satisfaction were found. A potential explanation of these results could underpin labor market characteristics. First, the Spanish labor context seems to be more segmented between permanent and temporary employment and private versus public organizations in terms of employment protection compared to the Austrian labor market. Hence, it is possible to find significant associations in the Spanish sample, and not in the Austrian one. More specifically, the Spanish labor market seems to be more instable and uncertain for employees. It presents higher rates of temporary employment (25.1%), and of unemployment (19.4%) compared to Austrian temporary employment (9%) and unemployment rates (5.3%) from 2011 to 2021 [ 90 ]. Second, the Spanish law is stricter for dismissal procedures for permanent employees compared to Austrian law. These procedures are more restrictive in Spain than in Austria when considering, for example, notification procedures that involves the obligation to provide a written statement with the reasons for dismissal or severance pay [ 136 ]. Organization nature also seems to provide higher employment protection in Spain than in Austria. In Austria, the population expressed that it is wrong to assume that a public law status automatically confers more protection and more disciplinary rights against dismissal than a labor law status. In contrast, the Spanish population expressed that agreed working conditions are more respected by public employers than by private ones, and job security is taken for granted [ 137 ]. Third, industrial relations are also an important factor in the employment protection. Unions’ primary concern is to secure jobs for all workers and to reduce the number of workers in precarious jobs [ 138 ]; thus, a successful union representation can promote job stability and security. Therefore, as De Cuyper [ 7 ] suggested, we take union density and collective bargaining coverage as indicative of the power of unions to influence personnel staffing strategies. Data shows that Austrian unions have more impact compared with Spanish unions, because the proportion of unionized workers in Austria was at 27.3% compared to 15.1% percent in Spain from 2011 to 2021 [ 90 ]. Finally, in Spain, the economic crisis was very pronounced at the time the data were collected. The economic prospect, widely discussed in the mass media, was even worse. This negative prospect may have increased concern about job loss and its consequences, in contrast to Austria, a country which was less affected by the economic crisis. Only a few studies on job insecurity have adopted a cross-cultural approach [ 139 , 140 , 141 ]. In fact, König [ 140 ] state that “little is known about how people in different countries react to job insecurity” (p. 150), and argue for more context-sensitive research on job insecurity.

In conclusion, in order to advance in the understanding of job insecurity phenomenon, future research must consider models of job insecurity at multiples levels with cross-cultural research designs.

Limitations. Despite the contribution of this study, it also presents a number of limitations. Causal inferences cannot be drawn from the study because of its cross-sectional research design: future longitudinal research will be needed to infer these causal relationships. In addition, most of our measures were self-reported; common method variance is therefore possible. Additional measures would be advisable in future research.

3.1. Theoretical and Practical Implications

Up to now, the growing research on job insecurity has examined this work stressor at multiple levels, but without the necessary basis or substantive framework. This study proposed this integrative framework that includes the main conceptualizations of job insecurity; in other words, it proposed an integration of the different constructs of job insecurity at individual and higher levels by adopting a multilevel approach. This study clarified and validated the nature of these constructs in relation to the different levels, and it evidenced that though these constructs may share similarities, they also manifest differences in different ways. Therefore, job instability in organizations and job insecurity climate included uncertainty about job continuity, but they differ in their nature. Job instability in organizations represents a more objective threat to job continuity, whereas job insecurity climate reflects a collective subjective perception, similarly to the differentiation between subjective job insecurity and objective job insecurity, understood as type of contract, at the individual level. In this vein, another important contribution was the difference between job insecurity climate and subjective job insecurity. Most of the literature has studied these constructs from the isomorphism assumption. However, this study evidenced that job insecurity climate is closely linked to its lower-level namesake (job insecurity), but they differ in important ways, as is evidenced on employees’ outcomes. In sum, this study underpinned the understanding nature of constructs at higher levels and its validity in order to pursue multilevel research and theory related to job insecurity construct. This study also involved important practical implications. Practicians and managers must take care about job stability within their organizations from different aspects. Organizations must prevent the individual perception of job insecurity or their employees’ concern about job lost, but also they should facilitate supportive climates for employees. This individual work stressor can also be presented at collective levels. So, if the organization is able to prevent this perception from being shared by most employees by using a clear and informative policy of employment, it will reduce the negative effects of job insecurity at multiple levels on employees’ outcomes. In sum, this study offered the multilevel validity of job insecurity construct through an integrative framework in order to advance in the area of job insecurity theory and practice.

3.2. Future Research

Our findings suggest several important areas for future research. Firstly, the mixed results in the Spanish and Austrian sample indicate potential differences based on culture and labor markets. Future research could examine these multilevel job insecurity constructs in multiple countries to explain this variability. Secondly, the results indicate that a valuable area of research may be a further examination of similarities and differences in perceived job insecurity, and antecedents and consequences of its conceptualization. Thirdly, a potential boundary for the generalizability of these results is the type of work units that we examined. Sudstrom (1999) and Chen (2002) [ 12 , 142 ] suggested that organizational phenomena may vary according to teams. In this respect, future research could focus on examining these job insecurity constructs at other levels of analysis, such as departments or teams. In this vein, other higher levels could be also considered to examine the collective phenomenon of job insecurity. For example, it has already suggested that countries with specific cultural factors and labor market characteristics may affect levels of job insecurity. Future research could examine if it is possible that collective job insecurity could emerge at higher levels than the organizational level, such as country level. Fourth, we used a consensus composition model to obtain the measure of job insecurity climate through an aggregation process of individual subjective job insecurity data, and climate strength was measured using an AD index. These measures did not allow us to examine the relationships between these constructs at higher levels, and job insecurity at lower levels. Future research could focus on the development of new measures based on shift-referent models that facilitate understanding of the relationships between these job insecurity constructs [ 3 ].

4. Conclusions

This work broadens the focus of job insecurity conceptualization by validating the nature of this construct at multiple levels. It conceptualized job insecurity at the individual level—understood as subjective and objective job insecurity—and at the organizational level, understood as job instability in an organization, job insecurity climate, and climate strength. By testing a homologous multilevel model of job insecurity, this study has evidenced both similarities and dissimilarities in the models of job insecurity. Accordingly, it is necessary to reconsider the theoretical assumptions of homology in multilevel models of job insecurity. Results and theoretical assumptions from research on individual job insecurity must not be generalized to collective job insecurity, and vice versa. In conclusion, we hope that this research encourages researchers to examinate job insecurity from a multilevel perspective, taking into account if it differs or remains the same across levels of analysis, in order to advance in the understanding of this work stressor and its consequences for employees and organizations.

Funding Statement

This research received no external funding.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, B.S., T.H., A.C. and J.M.P.; methodology, B.S., T.H., A.C. and J.M.P.; formal analysis, B.S. and T.H.; investigation, B.S., T.H., A.C. and J.M.P.; writing—original draft preparation, B.S., T.H., A.C. and J.M.P.; writing—review and editing, B.S., T.H., A.C. and J.M.P.; project administration, B.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and ethical commission of our university.

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

Conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Job insecurity: Meaning and tips to follow in creating an engaged and satisfied workplace

Imagine you’re driving down a highway, and suddenly, thick fog rolls in. You can’t see the road ahead, and every mile feels uncertain. That’s what job insecurity feels like for many employees today—unsure of what’s around the corner, constantly on edge.

We are in a world where market shifts and automation are the new norm, and this sense of uncertainty is more common than ever. But here’s the catch: when your team is gripped by job insecurity, they’re not just worrying about their future—they’re less focused, less innovative, and more stressed .

As a leader, it’s your job to clear the fog, offering clarity and reassurance in times of uncertainty. By fostering open communication , providing growth opportunities , and showing a commitment to your team’s well-being , you can turn that uneasy drive into a smoother ride.

Curious about strategies to tackle job insecurity in your workplace? Let’s explore how to keep your team confident and engaged.

What is job insecurity?

Job insecurity is the fear or uncertainty regarding the stability and continuity of one’s employment. It arises when employees perceive a potential threat to their job status, which can stem from various factors such as organizational restructuring, economic downturns, technological advancements, changes in management, or economic uncertainty.

This sense of instability can lead to significant emotional and psychological stress, affecting an employee’s well-being and performance . The impact of job insecurity extends beyond individual employees. It can permeate the workplace culture, leading to decreased morale and reduced trust in management.

Employees who feel insecure about their jobs may become less engaged and less motivated, resulting in lower productivity and higher turnover rates . This, in turn, can negatively affect organizational performance and increase recruitment and training costs.

Why is it important to curb job insecurity in the workplace?

Curbing job insecurity in the workplace is crucial for several reasons, as it directly impacts both employees and the organization. Let’s take a look at why it's so important.

Impact on mental health and emotional well-being

In 2023, in UK an estimated 6.8 million people ( 21.4% ) were severely insecure at work. Job insecurity can significantly affect employees’ mental and emotional well-being .

Constant worry about job stability leads to heightened stress and anxiety, decreasing morale and job satisfaction. This stress can result in burnout , absenteeism , and higher turnover rates, disrupting organizational continuity and increasing recruitment and training costs.

Effects on engagement and productivity

Job insecurity negatively impacts employee engagement and productivity by creating uncertainty about the future and financial stability. Insecure employees are less likely to be motivated, committed, or willing to go the extra mile.

This lack of engagement leads to lower quality work, reduced innovation, and decreased overall productivity, hindering the organization’s ability to achieve its goals and maintain a competitive edge.

Trust and communication issues

A workplace filled with job insecurity can damage trust and communication between employees and management. This erosion of trust creates a toxic work environment where collaboration and teamwork suffer. Employees may focus more on self-preservation than on contributing to collective success, further diminishing organizational cohesion and performance.

Benefits of addressing job insecurity

Conversely, fostering a stable and supportive work environment enhances employee loyalty, boosts morale, and improves overall productivity . Secure and valued employees are more likely to be engaged, innovative, and committed to the organization’s long-term success.

Curbing job insecurity is thus essential for creating a thriving workplace that benefits both employees and the organization. Companies perceived to have high job insecurity struggle to attract talent and maintain their workforce.

What are the different types of job instability among employees?

Job instability can manifest in various forms, each impacting employees differently. Here are some common types:

• Economic instability: This occurs when an employee’s job is at risk due to economic downturns, market volatility, or organizational financial issues. Employee layoffs and reduced hours are common indicators.
• Employment contract instability: Temporary, part-time, freelance, or gig workers often face uncertainty regarding contract renewals, hours, and long-term employment prospects.
• Organizational instability: Changes within an organization, such as mergers, acquisitions , or restructuring, can create uncertainty about job roles, security, and future career paths.
• Occupational instability: This refers to the risk of obsolescence in one’s profession due to technological advancements, automation, or shifts in industry demand, which can lead to job displacement or the need for retraining.
• Work schedule instability: Irregular or unpredictable work schedules can lead to job instability, affecting work-life balance and financial stability for employees who cannot rely on consistent hours.
• Geographical instability: Jobs that require frequent relocations or travel can cause instability, particularly when employees are forced to move for work or face long commutes, impacting their personal lives.
• Performance-based instability: Employees may face job insecurity if their performance is closely tied to their job security, such as in roles with high-performance pressures or in environments with frequent performance reviews and potential for termination based on results.
• Health and safety instability: Jobs in hazardous environments or those with high stress levels can cause instability due to the potential for injury, illness, or burnout, which can impact long-term employment.

What are the factors contributing to job insecurity at work?

Here are 10 factors that often lead to job insecurity at work.

1. Organizational restructuring

Frequent changes in organizational structure, such as mergers, acquisitions , or layoffs, can create uncertainty about job roles and stability. Employees may fear that their positions will be eliminated or that they will be reassigned to less desirable roles.

This uncertainty can have adverse effects on job-insecure workers' physical and mental health, leading to various health issues and unhealthy behaviors.

2. Economic downturns

Economic recessions or downturns can lead to cost-cutting measures, including workforce reductions. During these times, job uncertainty can significantly lower employee engagement as employees often worry about job stability while companies seek to reduce expenses and maintain profitability.

3. Technological advancements

Rapid technological changes can make certain skills obsolete, leading to fears of job displacement. Employees may feel insecure if they believe their roles are at risk of being automated or outsourced.

4. Management changes

New leadership can bring shifts in company strategy, culture, and priorities. Employees may feel uncertain about how these changes will affect their job security and future within the organization.

5. Performance pressures

High-performance expectations and intense competition can contribute to job insecurity. Employees may fear that not meeting targets or outperforming peers could lead to job loss.

6. Contract and temporary work

A rise in contract, temporary, or gig work can increase job insecurity, as these positions often lack the stability and benefits of permanent employment. Workers in these roles may constantly worry about contract renewals or finding the next job.

7. Poor communication

Lack of transparency and communication from management regarding company performance, future plans, and job security can heighten employee fears. Uncertainty and rumors can exacerbate feelings of insecurity.

8. Organizational culture

A toxic or unsupportive organizational culture can contribute to job insecurity. When employees feel undervalued or unsupported, they may worry about their future in the company.

9. Industry changes

Shifts in industry trends , such as declining demand for certain products or services, can create job insecurity. Employees in affected sectors may fear job cuts or company closures.

10. Personal factors

Individual factors, such as lack of skills, experience , or education, can also contribute to job insecurity. Employees who feel less qualified or underprepared for their roles may worry about their job stability.

Effect of job insecurity on employees: 5 Common problems that cause low morale

Job insecurity can significantly impact employees, leading to various problems that contribute to low morale. Here are five common issues:

• Increased stress and anxiety: Constant worry about job stability can lead to heightened stress and anxiety levels, affecting mental health and overall well-being . Studies have linked job insecurity to health issues such as heart disease and diabetes, emphasizing the negative effects on both physical and mental health.
• Reduced productivity and engagement: When employees are uncertain about their job future, they may become less motivated and less invested in their work, leading to decreased productivity and engagement .
• Decreased job satisfaction: Job insecurity often results in a lack of fulfillment and satisfaction with one’s job, as the fear of losing the position overshadows any positive aspects of the role.
• Lower commitment and loyalty: Employees who feel insecure about their jobs may have lower commitment to the organization and reduced loyalty, as they might constantly be on the lookout for more stable opportunities elsewhere.
• Deterioration of workplace relationships: Job insecurity can create a competitive and tense work environment, leading to strained relationships among colleagues and reduced teamwork and collaboration .

Job insecurity examples to look out for in your employees

Recognizing signs of job insecurity in employees can help managers address concerns and maintain a healthy work environment. Here are some examples to look out for:

• Decreased productivity: Employees may show a decline in work output, quality, or enthusiasm , indicating they are distracted by concerns about job security.
• Increased absenteeism: A rise in unexplained absences or frequent use of sick leave can be a sign of stress and anxiety related to job insecurity.
• Withdrawal from team activities: Employees might isolate themselves from team interactions, avoid meetings, or participate less in collaborative projects.
• Heightened sensitivity to feedback: A normally resilient employee might react more defensively to constructive criticism or performance reviews, fearing it could lead to job loss.
• Open job searching: Employees may be openly looking for new jobs, updating their resumes, or networking more actively within the industry.
• Expressing concerns: Employees might voice their worries about the company’s stability, potential layoffs, or their job security during conversations with colleagues or supervisors.
• Reluctance to take risks: An employee showing hesitance to take on new projects, propose ideas, or engage in tasks outside their comfort zone could be fearful of failure impacting their job security.
• Decline in workplace morale: A noticeable drop in enthusiasm, optimism, or overall morale can be indicative of widespread job insecurity among employees.
• Physical signs of stress: Observable stress-related symptoms such as fatigue, irritability, or changes in physical appearance may point to underlying job insecurity issues.
• Increased focus on job-related rumors: Employees who are particularly attentive to or spread rumors about potential layoffs, company financial troubles, or restructuring may be experiencing job insecurity.

12 Tips and best practices for reducing job insecurity among your employees

By implementing these tips and best practices, organizations can significantly reduce job insecurity, fostering a more engaged, productive, and loyal workforce.

• Communicate regularly and transparently: Maintain open lines of communication with employees about the company’s performance, goals , and any potential changes. Regular updates can reduce uncertainty and build trust.
• Provide career development opportunities: Offer training and professional development programs to help employees enhance their skills and advance within the company. Clear career progression paths can increase job security and motivation.
• Recognize and reward contributions: Acknowledge and reward employees’ efforts and achievements. Recognition programs , bonuses, and other incentives can boost morale and reinforce job security.
• Foster a positive workplace culture: Create an inclusive, supportive, and positive work environment where employees feel valued and respected. Encourage teamwork, collaboration , and a sense of community.
• Offer flexible work arrangements: Provide flexible work options, such as remote work, flexible hours, and part-time opportunities. Flexibility can reduce stress and improve work-life balance , contributing to a sense of job security.
• Provide clear job roles and expectations: Ensure that employees understand their job roles, responsibilities, and performance expectations. Clear guidelines can help reduce confusion and anxiety about job security.
• Implement employee wellness programs: Introduce wellness programs that address physical, mental, and emotional well-being. Activities such as fitness classes, mindfulness sessions, and stress management workshops can help employees cope with anxiety.
• Promote job stability: Avoid frequent layoffs and restructuring whenever possible. If changes are necessary, communicate the reasons clearly and provide support to affected employees, such as severance packages or job placement assistance.
• Enhance employee engagement: Involve employees in decision-making processes and solicit their input on projects and initiatives. Feeling heard and valued can strengthen their connection to the company and reduce insecurity.
• Develop strong leadership: Train managers and leaders to be supportive, empathetic, and effective communicators. Strong leadership can create a more secure and trusting work environment.
• Support continuous learning: Encourage a culture of continuous learning and improvement. Provide access to online courses, workshops , and other educational resources to help employees stay current and relevant in their fields.
• Build a resilient organization: Develop strategies to make the organization more resilient to economic fluctuations and industry changes. A stable and forward-thinking company can provide employees with a greater sense of security.

Significance of employee surveys in tackling job insecurity at the workplace

Employee surveys play a crucial role in addressing job insecurity in the workplace. These surveys provide a structured way to gauge employee sentiment, identify areas of concern, and understand the root causes of job insecurity .

By regularly collecting feedback, organizations can gain insights into employees' perceptions of their job stability, work environment, and overall satisfaction . This data allows managers to pinpoint specific issues that may be contributing to feelings of insecurity.

Moreover, employee engagement surveys can highlight trends and patterns that might not be immediately visible through casual observations or anecdotal reports.

Understanding these patterns helps organizations proactively address potential problems, such as communication gaps , management practices, or organizational changes that could contribute to job insecurity.

Implementing changes based on survey feedback demonstrates a commitment to addressing employee concerns , which can enhance trust and morale . When employees see that their feedback leads to tangible improvements, it can reduce anxiety and foster a more supportive work environment .

Ultimately, employee surveys are a valuable tool for creating a responsive and transparent workplace, helping to mitigate job insecurity and enhance overall employee engagement .

Role of employee retention software in Spotting and empowering insecure employees

Employee retention software plays a crucial role in spotting and addressing job insecurity, which directly impacts employee engagement and overall organizational health. These tools provide valuable insights into employee satisfaction and potential retention risks by analyzing various metrics and feedback.

By tracking patterns such as performance data, attendance records, and employee surveys, retention software can identify early warning signs of job dissatisfaction and insecurity .

For instance, the software can detect trends in absenteeism , decreased productivity , or negative sentiment from feedback surveys , signaling that employees may be feeling insecure about their jobs. Early detection allows organizations to intervene proactively, addressing concerns before they escalate into more serious issues.

Employee retention software helps in creating targeted retention strategies by offering analytics on factors that contribute to job insecurity. With this information, companies can tailor their approaches to improve job security, such as enhancing communication, offering career development opportunities , and fostering a supportive work environment.

Addressing job insecurity is essential for fostering a motivated and engaged workforce. By implementing strategies like transparent communication, career development, and wellness programs , organizations can mitigate the negative impacts of job insecurity.

Employee retention software, such as CultureMonkey , plays a crucial role in spotting early signs of dissatisfaction and enabling targeted interventions. Leveraging these tools helps create a supportive environment where employees feel valued and secure, ultimately driving better performance and organizational success.

Athira is a content marketer who loves reading non-fictions. As an avid reader, she enjoys visiting art galleries and literature festivals to explore new ideas and meet new people.

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Impact of job insecurity on job performance introduction

Career Development International

ISSN : 1362-0436

Article publication date: 20 March 2020

Issue publication date: 20 March 2020

De Cuyper, N. , Schreurs, B. , De Witte, H. and Selenko, E. (2020), "Impact of job insecurity on job performance introduction", Career Development International , Vol. 25 No. 3, pp. 221-228. https://doi.org/10.1108/CDI-06-2020-332

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited

Introduction

Organizations today are in a constant state of flux. Change is important for any organization. Without change, organizations may lose their competitive edge and fail to meet performance benchmarks. At the employee level, however, changes oftentimes evoke feelings of job insecurity. Felt job insecurity concerns “the subjectively experienced anticipation of a fundamental and involuntary event related to job loss” ( Sverke et al. , 2002 , p. 243). The downsides associated with felt job insecurity have been documented widely ( De Witte et al. , 2015, 2016 ; Jiang and Lavaysse, 2018 ; Lee et al. , 2018 ; Shoss, 2017 ). Felt job insecurity deteriorates job attitudes, such as job satisfaction and commitment, and impedes employee well-being and health.

The evidence for job performance is weaker yet pointing in the same direction. In particular, recent meta-analyses show weak to moderate negative relationships between felt job insecurity and different indicators of job performance ( Jiang and Lavaysse, 2018 ; Sverke et al. , 2019 ). Similarly, longitudinal evidence with varying time lags and measures shows that felt job insecurity impairs performance, including for example both self-rated ( Fischmann et al. , 2018 ; Huang et al. , 2012 ; Schreurs et al. , 2012 ) and other-rated task performance and creativity ( Probst et al. , 2007 ).

Despite accumulating evidence, the idea that felt job insecurity may boost performance is quite persistent. This idea is perhaps more comforting for employers in times of ongoing change. As organizational productivity is the aggregate of individual performance, a negative relationship may undermine any gain from organization change, while a positive relationship could facilitate change. Also from the workers’ side, the belief that hard work would protect from being dismissed might represent a belief in a just world – where people get what they deserve. The strength of opinion is however not matched with similarly strong evidence. Results from the first meta-analysis on this topic ( Sverke et al. , 2002 ) show a non-significant relationship between felt job insecurity and job performance: This meta-analysis has been quite impactful in terms of number of citations and may have fed the idea that felt job insecurity is not causing poorer job performance. However, this meta-analysis includes relatively few studies. In a more recent meta-analysis with more studies, Sverke et al . (2019) establish a negative relationship between felt job insecurity and job performance, but this study still has not the same impact as the 2002 study. Similarly, studies that established a positive relationship are few ( Probst, 2002 ; Probst et al. , 2007 ) but have attracted comparatively much attention. A further illustration comes from the many references to the study by Staufenbiel and König (2010) . This study is often used to support the idea of a positive relationship between felt job insecurity and job performance, while results in fact show a dominant negative path and a weaker positive path.

Against this background, this special issue has three interrelated aims. First, our understanding of whether felt job insecurity impairs job performance, for whom and why is still far from complete. Accordingly, the first aim is to strengthen and deepen the current base of evidence. Second, studies showing a positive relationship between felt job insecurity and job performance are rare but have much appeal. Rather than regarding those studies only as interesting exceptions, they could serve as a starting point to think about potential boundary conditions. Examples can be found in the meta-analysis by Sverke et al. (2019) and in the studies by Fischmann et al. (2018) and Wang et al. (2015) which all highlight the critical role of moderators. Accordingly, the second aim is to identify and probe potential moderators in the relationship between felt job insecurity and job performance. Third, while building (Aim 1) and extending (Aim 2) the existing evidence base is a critical endeavor, it is equally important to define new routes that are innovative in the field. Accordingly, our third aim is to advance ideas that could inspire research lines.

Achieving those aims could help to involve employers as critical stakeholders: successful organizational change is conditional upon job performance from employees, and felt job insecurity could be a cause for concern. Identifying when job insecurity affects performance and when it does not may provide hints as to what employers can do to support their employees. In the following, we will come back to these aims and implications in connection to the papers in this special issue.

This special issue

Aim 1: strengthening and deepening existing evidence.

A common feature in the five empirical papers in this special issue is that they all hypothesize and, with very few exceptions, demonstrate that felt job insecurity has a negative impact on job performance. This negative relationship appears quite robust: it is found across measures of job insecurity and across indicators and sources of job performance. Job insecurity measures come from Hellgren et al. (1999) in three papers in this special issue, from Probst (2003) in one paper, and are adapted from Hartley et al. ; and van Vuuren (1990) in one other paper. Indicators of job performance concern in-role performance in three papers and creativity, adaptive and contextual performance in one paper each. Finally, performance-ratings come from either the employee or the supervisor (for an exception, see Probst, Chizh, Hu, Jiang and Austin, this special issue, in which other-ratings are used). Despite this evidence, three issues remain.

First, the evidence in most papers in this special issue, like in felt job insecurity research in general, is based on small-scale convenience sampling or organization-based samples, all fairly homogeneous. This limits the generalizability of the findings, as it is unknown whether similar relationships would be found in other organizations, employment groups or industry sectors. Furthermore, it is difficult to gauge the size of the effects on a population level. Effects found in small, specific samples might be overshadowed by other factors that were not included and become non-significant on a population level.

In response, the first paper of this special issue by Van Vuuren, De Jong and Smolders (Paper 1) entitled “The association between subjective job insecurity and job performance across different employment groups” presents evidence from a representative sample of the Dutch working population, accounting for the large heterogeneity in the labor market in terms of contract types. Felt job insecurity in this study associates negatively with performance. Although small of size, it is in line with earlier meta-analytical results ( Sverke et al. , 2002, 2019 ). Furthermore, finding a relationship between job insecurity and performance at all on a population level is impressive. On this scale, even small effects will make a noticeable difference, for some people more so than others. Indeed, this was the case here: the negative relationship between felt job insecurity and job performance is stronger among the self-employed than among permanent and fixed term contract workers, and the relationship is virtually non-significant among temporary agency and on-call workers. Though tentative, this could be interpreted as meaning that felt job insecurity is more problematic among those who have more to lose, their business among the self-employed, job continuity among permanent workers or the prospect of job continuity among fixed term contract workers. Temporary and on-call workers might recognize insecurity as an expected component of their job situation (see De Cuyper and De Witte, 2008 for a similar reasoning). The findings of Van Vuuren et al . become even more relevant when we acknowledge that individual self-reported performance relates to objectively measured job performance ( Edgar et al. , 2015 ) which is connected to team and eventually organizational performance. Even if only a small bit of organizational performance can be explained by job insecurity, the fact that this effect is present on a national level, will come with noticeable economic consequences for some organizations. This might interest policy makers as it highlights the potential devastating economic effect that an increase in perceived job insecurity on a population level (and particularly among the self-employed) can have.

Second, most job insecurity studies come from within Europe or the USA, and the collection of papers in this special issue follows this trend, with contributions from The Netherlands and the USA. This obviously leads to the question regarding generalization across cultures. The study by Probst, Chizh, Hu, Jiang and Austin (Paper 2) entitled “Explaining the relationship between job insecurity and creativity: a two-country test of cognitive and affective mediators” shows that the negative relationship between felt job insecurity and job performance is consistent across cultural settings, USA and China in particular. That is, Chinese and American workers showed similar performance decrements in response to felt job insecurity. Consistent with previous studies (e.g. Lee et al. , 2008 ), this finding suggests that felt job insecurity is a pervasive stressor and exerts negative effects, irrespective of country or culture. Nevertheless, there could be variations in the strength of relationships: this has been demonstrated, though not yet extensively, in the wider area of occupational health and well-being (e.g. Debus et al. , 2012 ; Probst and Lawler, 2006 ) and definitely needs follow-up for performance outcomes.

Third, most papers in this special issue do not explain why felt job insecurity impairs job performance. Stretching this to the broader research area, research is lagging behind in testing mechanisms underlying the relationship between felt job insecurity and job performance or, for that matter, other outcomes ( De Witte, 2016 ). The studies that do, in this special issue or elsewhere, often rely on one of four frameworks: appraisal theory (see e.g. Huang et al. , 2012 ), conservation of resources theory (see e.g. Schreurs et al. , 2012 ), self-determination theory (see e.g. Stynen et al. , 2015 ; Van den Broeck et al. , 2014 ), and social exchange theory ( De Cuyper and De Witte, 2006 ; Lam et al. , 2015 ). A relatively new framework in the area of job insecurity research concerns threat rigidity theory (see e.g. Niesen et al. , 2014 ; Van Hootegem et al. , 2019 ). Probst et al. use threat rigidity theory to introduce cognitive failure as a potential mediator, and successfully so, next to the more common mediator positive affect. Whereas prior research has mostly focused on its role as motivational lever, this study shows that felt job insecurity can significantly affect employees’ ability to perform at work by influencing their cognitive capacities. The cognitive explanation brings a new impulse to our understanding of why felt job insecurity impedes job performance and provides a pathway for a more extensive understanding of the role of felt job insecurity in affecting people’s behavior at work.

Aim 2: boundary conditions

Two studies in this special issue seek to reconcile the dominant view that the felt job insecurity – job performance relationship is negative and the more provocative view that it is positive. This highlights the dilemma faced by job insecure employees ( Shoss, 2017 ). On the one hand, job insecure employees may want to withdraw from their job. On the other hand, they may think that working hard is a route to job continuity and use this knowledge strategically. The reaction could be conditional upon moderators, be they bound to the situation or the person.

Lavigne, Whitaker, Jundtt and Shoss (Paper 3) in her study entitled “When do job insecure employees adapt to change?” along these lines argues and then demonstrates that job insecure employees invest resources strategically: they invest resources in those behaviors that are rewarded or valued by the organization (for a similar argument). She illustrates her point by showing that the relationship between felt job insecurity and adaptive performance is negative when there are few changes to the core tasks but not significant when there are many changes: employees take changes to core tasks as a signal that the organization values adaptive performance and act accordingly. However, even under such signals, the relationship between felt job insecurity and adaptive performance is not positive: signals from the organizations can buffer yet not boost performance.

Koen, Low and Van Vianen (Paper 4) in their manuscript entitled “Job preservation efforts: when does job insecurity prompt performance?” hypothesize that felt job insecurity relates negatively to performance. Yet, the relationship can be positive under specific conditions, namely when employees perceive performance as instrumental toward restoring security. Such is supposed to be the case among employees who are not typically intrinsically motivated and in situations of high distributive justice, where people believe they will be justly rewarded for their efforts. Results aligns with the idea that felt job insecurity relates negatively to job performance and that intrinsic motivation may play a role. An intriguing observation and contrasting the authors’ hypothesis is that felt job insecurity relates positively to job performance among those who perceive low (vs high) distributive justice. Injustice has been identified as a motivator of action before, especially in situations of harm (as during job insecurity) ( Foster and Rusbult, 1999 ). Both job insecurity and distributive injustice have been found to be identity-undermining experiences. Working to a high standard in these situations might hence be read as an act of defiance, to reaffirm ones’ own sense of being a valuable worker, as a reaction to and despite of not getting any reward or recognition for it from the organization. More research is needed to replicate these findings, and the effect of injustice and its potentially motivating role in times of job insecurity need yet to be fully understood.

Aim 3: new routes

Another two studies in this special issue bring in elements from the more provocative view that job insecurity prompts performance, yet with an interesting twist. This leads to challenging new routes.

First, a common idea in the provocative view is that felt job insecurity triggers impression management behavior, so that employees appear (but not necessarily are) hard-working citizens: impression management following feelings of job insecurity is a strategic investment. Probst, Jiang and Lopez-Bohle (Paper 5) in their study “Job insecurity and impression management: which is the horse and which is the cart when it comes to job performance?” reverse causality: they argue that employees can also strategically invest resources to reduce the very feeling of job insecurity. In particular, they find that supervisor-focused impression management fosters job security, and this relates positively to job performance. What this study shows is that employees proactively and strategically invest to prevent potential job loss and associated feelings of insecurity: proactivity has not typically been at the center of job insecurity research.

Second, the divide between the more traditional vs provocative view is to a large extent based on how felt job insecurity is appraised: as hindrance or challenge. Hindrance stressors are undesirable work-related demands that interfere with work achievements, hence impaired performance following felt job insecurity. Challenge stressors are work-related demands that are potentially stressful but can be overcome and have a potential gain for the individual ( Cavanaugh et al. , 2000 ), hence increased performance following felt job insecurity. Debus, Unger and König (Paper 6) in their conceptual paper “Job insecurity duration and performance” bridge the divide by advancing a person-centered approach that allows for distinct employee profiles. Most importantly they argue that appraisals can change over time, which can lead to a set of dynamic trajectories in three strands. One strand follows hindrance appraisals. The common feature is that felt job insecurity impairs performance, but the shape of the trajectory could be quite different: for example, felt job insecurity may hit particularly hard in early stages or instead in later stages, or there could be a continuous impact. A second strand concerns challenge appraisals, when felt job insecurity motivates employees to perform. Such motivation may be present from the onset or instead delayed and it may be continuous or not. A third group concerns stability, when felt job insecurity does not seem to affect performance, for example because felt job insecurity is appraised as irrelevant or when hindrance and threat appraisals are equally strong. This pattern is often overlooked in the current debate. It is important though, as it highlights that there are potentially conflicting dynamics ( Staufenbiel and König, 2010 ). The person-centered approach in combination with time is a promising route for future research and needs empirical follow-up. To adequately test the authors’ propositions, a context is required that provides a clear and meaningful onset point or catalyst to initiate appraisals of felt job insecurity. One such onset point is the time of organizational entry; another is the announcement of an organizational restructuring. Data collection will be a challenge, either way.

Implications for employers

This set of papers hold interesting implications related to the apparent paradox that change is needed, yet that change brings feelings of job insecurity which undermines successful change. This is a complementary to and perhaps a more contemporary interpretation of the vicious cycle described in the seminal paper by Greenhalgh and Rosenblatt (1984) (see also Greenhalgh and Sutton, 1991): felt job insecurity may undermine organizational effectiveness, which then promotes feelings of job insecurity. The papers by Van Vuuren et al. (Paper 1) and Probst, Chisz et al. (Paper 2) shows that those employers’ concerns should not be taken lightly: felt job insecurity associates negatively with job performance, and more strongly so among employees who are at the core of the organization (Paper 1) and across cultures (Paper 2). In addition, felt job insecurity impairs creativity, while change processes often thrive on creative solutions (Paper 2).

The papers in the special issue also hint at dos and don’ts for employers. On the “do”-side, Lavigne (Paper 3) brings situational cues to the fore as a way to help understand employees which behaviors are needed and valued. Employers could deliberately use these cues to shape employees’ behaviors and to provide employees a sense of control over the situation. Such cues could relate to actual changes in core tasks, as in Lavigne’s paper or clear and transparent communication ( Smet et al. , 2016 ). Probst et al. (Paper 5) open a view on primary prevention, complementary to the fairly large stream of research that has focused upon potential ways to cope with felt job insecurity in an attempt to reduce the harmful impact of felt job insecurity. This stream is concerned with employees’ reactions vis-à-vis felt job insecurity. Probst et al. show that employees are to some extent agents of their own career and this knowledge can be used as a tool for primary prevention.

On the “don’t” side, the pattern of results in Koen et al. ’s paper shows that performance increases following insecurity are highly self-serving. In addition, the conceptualization by Debus et al. (Paper 6) suggests that the impact on performance can be dynamic and, depending on employee profiles, not readily visible. The implication is that changes in performance or lack of those in situations of high insecurity may not be the best criterion for decisions in HR-related matters. A better criterion could be to look at past performance over a longer period of time.

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Further reading

Greenhagh , L. and Sutton , R. ( 1991 ), “ Organizational effectiveness and job insecurity ”, in Hartley , J. , Jacobson , D. , Klandermans , B. and van Vuuren , T. (Eds), Job Insecurity. Coping with Jobs at Risk , Sage , London , pp. 151 - 171 .

Hartley , J. , Jacobson , D. , Klandermans , B. and van Vuuren , T. ( 1991 ), Job Insecurity: Coping with Jobs at Risk , Sage , London .

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Digital Commons @ USF > Office of Graduate Studies > USF Graduate Theses and Dissertations > USF Tampa Theses and Dissertations > 7865

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Essays on health, healthcare, job insecurity and health outcomes.

Ichiro Nakamoto , University of South Florida Follow

Graduation Year

Document type.

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Degree Granting Department

Major professor.

Padmaja Ayyagari, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Andrei Barbos, Ph.D.

Gabriel Picone, Ph.D.

He Zhang, Ph.D.

Difference-in-Difference, Medicare Part D, Health, Informal Care, Endogeneity, Instrumental Variable

This doctoral dissertation proposal is comprised of three separate chapters, all of which uses the nationally representative uniform survey Health and Retirement Survey (HRS) to examine the relationship between health, insurance, health care and health outcomes. Below, the brief introduction for each section is provided:

 Chapter I: Medicare Part D and Patients' Well-being

 Chapter II: Parent's Health Insurance and Informal Care

 Chapter III: Job Insecurity and Health (with Dr. Ayyagari)

In chapter I, I explore how Medicare Part D (MD) affects the well-being of the severely sick patients both in the short- and in the long- term. I employ difference-in-difference (DD) alongside the instrumental variable (IV) model. The estimated results imply MD significantly improves mental health and increases regular drug utilization for the elderly. However, it neither systematically improves out-of-pocket payment (OOP) nor improves mortality across all waves. This suggests that MD provides an efficient mechanism to improve mental health and drug utilization, but might not necessarily enhance survival rate and financial burden for vulnerable patients.

Chapter II investigates the relationship between informal care provided by the children and the take-up of health insurance by the near-elderly and elderly parents, and how the correlation is influenced by parent’s Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) and Instrumental Activities of

Daily Living (IADLs). The results indicate that when the endogeneity is controlled for, in-formal care systematically crowds out the take-up of private long-term care (LTC) insurance whereas “crowds in” the take-up of the total plan including supplement insurance plans (TSP). Nevertheless, the degree of both crowding-out and “crowding-in” effect is reduced when the severity of ADLs/IADLs disability level grows. Our study reflects (a) the strong demand for TSP and more additional health coverage within household budget line (b) and the potential gap between healthcare demands by the parents and the informal care provided by the children and the potential gap between the healthcare demands by the parents and the formal care covered by the insurance. Our estimates are robust to alternative measures of informal care.

The final chapter III examines the causal effect of subjective job insecurity on health, using pooled ordinary least squares (OLS), fixed-effects (FE) and instrumental variable (IV) specifications. The estimate implies that the negative impact of job insecurity is more pronounced for certain outcomes such as mental health and the emergence of new health conditions. Job insecurity provides a powerful prediction on subsequent job displacement and real income loss. Sub-population such as low-employability/better-educated individuals or males responds more to job insecurity than their counterparts.

Scholar Commons Citation

Nakamoto, Ichiro, "Essays on Health, Healthcare, Job Insecurity and Health Outcomes" (2019). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations. https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/7865

Since November 21, 2019

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Economics Commons , Medicine and Health Sciences Commons

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