Job Satisfaction when Unemployment is High: Thankful for the Work
Posted by Jeffrey Henning on Mon, Nov 29, 2010
One of our customers has seen employee satisfaction increase the past few years, and she asked me if that was a general trend: “Are workers more or less satisfied with their jobs during times of high unemployment?”
One theory is that workers are less satisfied because the lack of other jobs to switch to gives dissatisfied workers fewer opportunities to go someplace they think will make them happier. A widely reported study by the Conference Board, “I Can't Get No . . . Job Satisfaction, That Is,” echoed this sentiment, going so far as to claim that job satisfaction was at its lowest level in over 22 years. Unfortunately, that survey didn’t use random sampling, and it’s by an organization that only sporadically studies job satisfaction.
In fact, researchers who regularly study job satisfaction, such as Gallup and the University of Chicago, disagreed with the Conference Board findings. Gallup has researched job satisfaction every August since 1989; their 2010 job satisfaction level was tied for the third highest level of satisfaction in that time period. However, there’s only a 0.61 correlation between Gallup’s measurement of U.S. job satisfaction and U.S. unemployment from 2001-2010, which is not enough to be significant for a sample size of 10.
When you look at more than one country – as last year’s study, “Determinants of Job Satisfaction across the EU-15” – does, you see a clearer picture. José María Millán, et al, studied workers in 15 European Union countries to determine drivers of job satisfaction. The authors write:
A country’s unemployment rate relates positively to job satisfaction in terms of type of work, while it relates negatively to satisfaction in terms of job security. The first findings may reflect that in case of high unemployment rates people may simply be happy not to be unemployed and therefore report higher levels of satisfaction with the type of work. The latter finding may reveal that when unemployment rates are higher, job conditions may worsen and people may also be more aware of the risk of losing one’s job and hence report lower levels of satisfaction with their job in terms of job security.
So if you’ve seen an increase in your staff’s employee satisfaction in the past few years, don’t take too much credit for it. And don’t be surprised if you see satisfaction start to decline as unemployment does.