Suchergebnisse

Earlier studies established that perceived job insecurity is more strongly related to the experiences of permanent employees, and conversely that perceived employability is more strongly related to the experiences of temporary employees. This article challenges these results against the background of the 2008/2009 crisis using samples from the 2010 European Social Survey with employees from Continental and Mediterranean Europe. First, the authors argue that job insecurity has become a structural phenomenon that associates with temporary and permanent employees' satisfaction in the same fashion, which found overall support. Second, they argue that employability may have become important for all employees, regardless of contract type, which was largely supported. A cause for concern is that the relationship between perceived job insecurity and satisfaction was comparatively stronger than the relationship between perceived employability and satisfaction. This may suggest that employees have not yet fully embraced ideas about employability as the new form of security.

In this study, the authors seek to account for possible transitions from temporary to permanent employment in relation to perceived psychosocial work characteristics, i.e. job insecurity, workload, job control and organizational communication. The study compared three groups of Finnish hospital workers utilizing a two-wave design with a two-year time lag: (1) workers who were temporarily employed at Time 1 but permanently employed at Time 2 (temporary-to-permanent workers; n = 25); (2) workers who were temporarily employed at Time 1 and at Time 2 (long-term temporary workers; n = 45); and (3) a reference group of workers who were permanently employed at Time 1 and Time 2 (permanent workers; n = 316). The results showed that temporary-to-permanent workers experienced less job insecurity but more workload at Time 2 than at Time 1. Furthermore, long-term temporary workers experienced higher workload at Time 2 than at Time 1, and they also reported a negative change in organizational communication during the follow-up.

The present study aimed to add to the extensive variable-centred literature on the Job Demands–Resources (JD–R) model by validating the model using a person-centred approach. A two-step cluster analysis in a sample of Flemish community employees ( N = 307) showed that job demands and job resources co-occur in four job profiles: demanding (high demands, low resources), resourceful (low demands, high resources), poor (low demands and low resources) and rich (high demands and high resources) jobs. In line with the JD–R model, employees in demanding jobs evidenced the poorest well-being (high burnout and low work engagement). Resourceful as well as rich jobs were the most optimal job profiles: employees with such profiles reported the least burnout and the most work engagement. The discussion centres on the theoretical lessons learned from the differences among the job profiles, the practical importance of cluster analysis as a diagnostic tool and the presence of job resources.