All Insecure, All Good? Job Insecurity Profiles in Relation to Career Correlates

Felt job insecurity is commonly seen as a stressor that is tied to a specific segment of employees and which implies overall negative outcomes. We challenge this view based on the new career rhetoric that assumes that felt job insecurity is widespread, although not necessarily problematic; rather, o...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of environmental research and public health 2019-07, Vol.16 (15), p.2640
Main Authors: De Cuyper, Nele, Van Hootegem, Anahí, Smet, Kelly, Houben, Ellen, De Witte, Hans
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Belgium
Careers
Employees
Employment
Employment - psychology
Employment security
Female
Humans
Job Satisfaction
Labor market
Male
Market segments
Middle Aged
Occupations
Public sector
Segmentation
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Felt job insecurity is commonly seen as a stressor that is tied to a specific segment of employees and which implies overall negative outcomes. We challenge this view based on the new career rhetoric that assumes that felt job insecurity is widespread, although not necessarily problematic; rather, on the contrary, that felt job insecurity may promote career growth and development. Accordingly, our first aim concerns the distribution of felt quantitative and qualitative job insecurity, and our second aims concerns the connection between profiles and career correlates (i.e., perceived employability, individual and organizational career management). We used two samples of Belgian employees (N1 = 2355; N2 = 3703) in view of constructive replication. We used Latent Profile Analysis to compile profiles of felt quantitative and qualitative job insecurity and linked those profiles to career outcomes. Our results are similar across samples: five profiles were found, from relatively secure to relatively insecure (aim 1). The more secure profiles reported more favorable career outcomes than the less secure profiles (aim 2). This provided overall support for the common view. We connect these findings to what we see as the main risk, namely the potentially growing divide based on felt job insecurity and the relatively large group of employees in insecure profiles.
ISSN:1660-4601
1661-7827
1660-4601
DOI:10.3390/ijerph16152640