Daily relationships between job insecurity and emotional labor amid COVID-19: Mediation of ego depletion and moderation of off-job control and work-related smartphone use.

The economic recession in the service sector during the COVID-19 pandemic has jeopardized service employees' job security. While the daily fluctuations of perceived job insecurity may have implications for service employees' emotional labor, the day-to-day relationship between these two variables and their mediating and moderating mechanisms in the pandemic context remain unknown. To fill this gap, our research examined the day-level relationship between job insecurity perceptions, ego depletion, and emotional labor, as well as the moderating effects of overnight off-job control and work-related smartphone use. To assess these relationships, we conducted two daily studies during the COVID-19 pandemic. In study 1 (March-April 2020), 135 service employees responded to morning and evening online surveys for five workdays. In study 2 (June 2022), which administered morning and evening online surveys to 90 flight attendants for five workdays, work-related COVID-19 exposure risk was controlled in the analyses. The results of the two studies demonstrated that on a day when service employees perceived a high level of job insecurity, they felt ego-depleted, which, in turn, was associated with decreased deep acting and increased surface acting. Post hoc findings indicated a significant three-way interaction between off-job control, off-job work-related smartphone use, and daily job insecurity, such that the job insecurity-ego depletion-emotional labor was most pronounced when off-job control was low and off-job work-related smartphone use was high. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Racial and ethnic disparities in excess mortality among U.S. veterans during the COVID-19 pandemic.

OBJECTIVE: The COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affected racial and ethnic minorities among the general population in the United States; however, little is known regarding its impact on U.S. military Veterans. In this study, our objectives were to identify the extent to which Veterans experienced increased all-cause mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic, stratified by race and ethnicity. DATA SOURCES: Administrative data from the Veterans Health Administration's Corporate Data Warehouse. STUDY DESIGN: We use pre-pandemic data to estimate mortality risk models using five-fold cross-validation and quasi-Poisson regression. Models were stratified by a combined race-ethnicity variable and included controls for major comorbidities, demographic characteristics, and county fixed effects. DATA COLLECTION: We queried data for all Veterans residing in the 50 states plus Washington D.C. during 2016-2020. Veterans were excluded from analyses if they were missing county of residence or race-ethnicity data. Data were then aggregated to the county-year level and stratified by race-ethnicity. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Overall, Veterans' mortality rates were 16% above normal during March-December 2020 which equates to 42,348 excess deaths. However, there was substantial variation by racial and ethnic group. Non-Hispanic White Veterans experienced the smallest relative increase in mortality (17%, 95% CI 11%-24%), while Native American Veterans had the highest increase (40%, 95% CI 17%-73%). Black Veterans (32%, 95% CI 27%-39%) and Hispanic Veterans (26%, 95% CI 17%-36%) had somewhat lower excess mortality, although these changes were significantly higher compared to White Veterans. Disparities were smaller than in the general population. CONCLUSIONS: Minoritized Veterans experienced higher rates excess of mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to White Veterans, though with smaller differences than the general population. This is likely due in part to the long-standing history of structural racism in the United States that has negatively affected the health of minoritized communities via several pathways including health care access, economic, and occupational inequities.

Furloughed Employees' Voluntary Turnover: The Role of Procedural Justice, Job Insecurity, and Job Embeddedness.

During the COVID-19 lockdown period, several employers used furloughs, that is, temporary layoffs or unpaid leave, to sustain their businesses and retain their employees. While furloughs allow employers to reduce payroll costs, they are challenging for employees and increase voluntary turnover. This study uses a two-wave model (Time 1: n = 639/Time 2: n = 379) and confirms that furloughed employees' perceived justice in furlough management and job insecurity (measured at Time 1) explain their decision to quit their employer (measured at Time 2). In addition, our results confirm that furloughed employees' job embeddedness (measured at Time 1) has a positive mediator effect on the relationship between their perceived procedural justice in furlough management (measured at Time 1) and their turnover decision (Time 2). We discuss the contribution of this study to the fields of knowledge and practice related to turnover and furlough management to reduce their financial, human, and social costs.

Employees' support strategies for mental wellbeing during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic: Recommendations for employers in the UK workforce.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and beyond for many businesses, employees have had to adapt to new ways of working due to disruptions in traditional practices. It is therefore crucial to understand the new challenges that employees are facing when it comes to taking care of their mental wellbeing at work. To that end, we distributed a survey to full-time UK employees (N = 451) to explore how supported they felt throughout the pandemic, and to identify whether there are any additional types of support they would like to receive. We also compared employees' intentions to seek help before versus during the COVID-19 pandemic, and assessed their current attitudes toward mental health. Based on direct employee feedback, our results show remote workers felt more supported throughout the pandemic compared to hybrid workers. We also found that employees who had previously experienced an episode of anxiety or depression were significantly more likely to want extra support at work compared to those who had not. Furthermore, employees were significantly more likely to seek help for their mental health during the pandemic compared to before. Interestingly, the largest increase in intentions to seek help during the pandemic compared to before was with digital health solutions. Finally, we found that the strategies managers have adopted to better support their employees, an employee's mental health history, and their attitude to mental health all contributed to significantly increasing the likelihood that an employee would disclose a mental health concern to their line manager. We provide recommendations that encourage organisations to make changes to better support their employees, and we highlight the importance of mental health awareness training for both managers and employees. This work is of particular interest to organisations who are looking to tailor their current employee wellbeing offer to a post-pandemic world.

Behavioral Reactions to Job Insecurity Climate Perceptions: Exit, Voice, Loyalty, and Neglect.

Past work has extensively documented that job insecurity predicts various work- and health-related outcomes. However, limited research has focused on the potential consequences of perceived job insecurity climate. Our objective was to investigate how the psychological climate about losing a job and valuable job features (quantitative and qualitative job insecurity climate, respectively) relate to employees' exit, voice, loyalty, and neglect behaviors, and whether such climate perceptions explain additional variance in these behaviors over individual job insecurity. Data were collected through an online survey using a convenience sample of employees working in different organizations in Türkiye (N = 245). Hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that quantitative job insecurity climate was associated with higher levels of loyalty and neglect, while qualitative job insecurity climate was related to higher levels of exit and lower levels of loyalty. Importantly, job insecurity climate explained additional variance over individual job insecurity in exit and loyalty. Our findings underscore the importance of addressing job insecurity in a broader context regarding one's situation and the psychological collective climate. This study contributes to addressing the knowledge gap concerning job insecurity climate, an emerging construct in the organizational behavior literature, and its incremental impact beyond individual job insecurity. The foremost implication is that organizations need to pay attention to the evolving climate perceptions about the future of jobs in the work environment, because such perceptions are related to critical employee behaviors.

Job insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic and counterproductive work behavior: The sequential mediation effects of job stress and organizational identification and the buffering role of corporate social responsibility.

Swift social and economic environmental changes such as those associated with the COVID-19 pandemic have led to decreased job security. Although numerous previous studies have examined the influence of job insecurity on employee perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors, the link between job insecurity and negative behavior and its underlying or intermediating mechanisms remain underexplored. The significance of an organization's positive behaviors, which fall under the umbrella of corporate social responsibility (CSR), also deserves more attention. To address these gaps, we examined both the mediator and the moderator in the association between job insecurity and negative employee behavior by establishing a moderated sequential mediation model. We hypothesized that the levels of employee job stress and organizational identification sequentially mediate the relationship between job insecurity and counterproductive work behavior as a representative negative behavior. We also hypothesized that CSR activities play a buffering role that moderates the influence of job insecurity on job stress. We used three-wave time-lagged data collected from 348 employees in South Korean organizations to demonstrate that job stress and organizational identification sequentially mediate the relationship between job insecurity and counterproductive work behavior, and that CSR activities function as a buffering factor that decreases the influence of job insecurity on job stress. The results of this research suggest that the levels of job stress and organizational identification (as sequential mediators) as well as CSR activities (as a moderator) are underlying mechanisms in the link between job insecurity and counterproductive work behavior.

Long COVID Linked With Unemployment in New Analysis.

This Medical News article discusses new research on the association between long COVID and employment status.

How much do we care about teacher job insecurity during the pandemic? A bibliometric review.

In this study, a descriptive bibliometric analysis of the scientific production in the Web of Science on job insecurity perceived by teachers in pandemic situations was carried out. The result shows the growing interest in the topic with an upward trend with an annual growth of 41.52%. Forty-seven papers from 41 journals with 2,182 cited references were considered, with 149 researchers from 30 countries publishing at least one article. The country with the most publications was the United States, followed by Germany and Spain. The United States was the country with the most collaborations. A total of 95 institutions published papers, and the universities with the most registrations were Miami University and the University of the Basque Country, although York University and the University of the Basque Country had a higher overall citation coefficient (102 and 40, respectively). Of the 41 journals that have published on the topic, Frontiers in Education and the British Journal of Educational Psychology stood out in terms of their article numbers. However, this last one was superior in terms of the overall number of citations per year, followed by Frontiers of Psychology.

The perceived effectiveness and hidden inequity of postpandemic fiscal stimuli.

The world has committed trillions in fiscal expenditures to reboot the economy in the post­COVID-19 era. However, the effectiveness and the equity impacts of current fiscal stimuli are not fully understood. Using an extended adaptive regional input­output model, we assess the short-term impacts (2020 through 2022) of feasible stimuli on the global economy and the labor market. Our findings show that the stimuli pledged by 26 countries, i.e., 2.4 trillion euros in total, are effective in keeping the recession short and shallow by saving 53 million to 57 million jobs (compared to the no-stimulus scenario). However, the stimuli exacerbate income inequity at the global scale if we define "equity" as those who suffer more from the pandemic should receive more assistance. Low-skilled workers in these countries, who suffer more from the pandemic than high-skilled workers, benefit 38 to 41% less from the job-creation effects of the current fiscal stimuli. As an alternative, low-carbon stimuli can achieve a balance between effectiveness and equity at the global level. Low-carbon stimuli save 55 million to 58 million jobs and decrease income inequality by 2 to 3% globally compared to the currently pledged stimuli. Country-level situations are more complicated, as modifying the current stimuli to achieve more "greenness" brings win­win in effectiveness and equity in some countries, while in the others, more greenness and equity are at the expense of less job savings. Our findings underscore the need to consider the overlooked trade-offs between effectiveness, equity, and greenness, both globally and nationally, when designing further postpandemic fiscal stimuli.

Developing a Multilevel Scale to Assess Retention of Workers with Disabilities.

Purpose Persons with disabilities (PwD) face difficulties in employment. Despite extensive research on PwD in the workplace, there is lack of research on the factors behind retaining or terminating the job of a PwD. This study aims to address this gap by developing the Retaining Workers with Disability (RWD) model. Method Predicated on 1032 respondents with employment decision authority, we performed exploratory factor analysis (EFA) followed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) for convergent and discriminant validity of the RWD model. Next, we developed the two-rank model RWD-II and employed CFA for validation. Results We presented a dual-facet measurement tool for assessing employer attitudes towards retaining PwD in the workplace. Two dominant factors were measured, direct and indirect work-related items. Indices for both models (one and two-rank) showed a good fit. Conclusion Our study highlighted two major factors influencing managers in the decision-making process of retaining workers with disabilities as follows: direct and indirect work-related concerns. The measure was validated using the RWD scale. By providing the tool to identify attitudes towards PwD work retention, we offer the first step in identifying and changing a negative approach toward this population in the workplace. Practical contributions are discussed.

Reformulating Graham v. Connor's Excessive Force Test to ADApt for Individuals with Disabilities.

Individuals with disabilities are sixteen times more likely to be killed by officers during a law enforcement encounter than other individuals. As the ever-growing list of victims demonstrates, law enforcement violence against individuals with disabilities is a national crisis. Yet, the current test, developed under Graham v. Connor, for whether officers' use of force is excessive during an arrest considers only three factors: severity of the crime, immediacy of the threat, and resistance to arrest or attempts to flee. On its face, Graham's three-factor test does not contemplate whether an arrestee's individual characteristics are relevant to an officer's use of force. Recognizing that the Graham factors are "non-exhaustive" and "flexible," some lower federal courts have relaxed the excessive force test to account for particular circumstances. However, there is no consensus among the circuit courts and the Supreme Court has not revisited the Graham test.Over three decades later, courts still do not have sufficient guidance on how to address individual disability under Graham. This Note advocates that in adherence to Graham's expressed flexibility, its three-factor test should be reformulated to add in a fourth factor inspired by Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act to account for whether "reasonable modifications" of an individual's disability were made in situations when law enforcement employs force during the course of an arrest. Applying this standard in cases where an officer "reasonably should know" the arrestee has a disability promotes a baseline assumption that law enforcement officers have an active role in accommodating all disabilities.

COVID-19 Risk by Workers' Occupation and Industry in the United States, 2020‒2021.

Objectives. To assess the risk of COVID-19 by occupation and industry in the United States. Methods. Using the 2020-2021 National Health Interview Survey, we estimated the risk of having had a diagnosis of COVID-19 by workers' industry and occupation, with and without adjustment for confounders. We also examined COVID-19 period prevalence by the number of workers in a household. Results. Relative to workers in other industries and occupations, those in the industry "health care and social assistance" (adjusted prevalence ratio = 1.23; 95% confidence interval = 1.11, 1.37), or in the occupations "health practitioners and technical," "health care support," or "protective services" had elevated risks of COVID-19. However, compared with nonworkers, workers in 12 of 21 industries and 11 of 23 occupations (e.g., manufacturing, food preparation, and sales) were at elevated risk. COVID-19 prevalence rose with each additional worker in a household. Conclusions. Workers in several industries and occupations with public-facing roles and adults in households with multiple workers had elevated risk of COVID-19. Public Health Implications. Stronger workplace protections, paid sick leave, and better health care access might mitigate working families' risks from this and future pandemics. (Am J Public Health. 2023;113(6):647-656. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2023.307249).

Characteristics of long working hours and subsequent psychological and physical responses: JNIOSH cohort study.

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to examine the prospective association among objectively measured average working hours (AWHs), frequency of long working hours (FLWHs; defined as ≥205 working hours/month (≥45 hours/week)) for 6 months, and workers' self-reported psychological and physical health. METHODS: The study included 15 143 workers from 5 Japanese companies. We collected monthly attendance records over 6 months before distributing a questionnaire survey on psychological/physical stress responses and work-related demographics. We then evaluated the associations of those attendance records with psychological/physical measures using analysis of covariance adjusted for sex, age, employment, job type, working conditions, work site and experience of emergency state due to COVID-19. RESULTS: Irritability, anxiety and depression were significantly greater at ≥180 hours (≥45 hours/week), and fatigue and lack of vigour were greater at ≥205 hours than those of the normal working-hour group (140-180 hours/month [35-45 hours/week]). Psychological indices increased significantly with FLWH, with ≥3 times for irritability, depression and fatigue; ≥2 times for lack of vigour; and ≥1 time for anxiety when compared with no long working hours. No significant associations were observed between AWH or FLWH and physical stress responses. CONCLUSIONS: Longer AWH was associated with higher levels of psychological stress responses. The effects of FLWH in the past 6 months varied among the psychological stress responses and did not occur for physical complaints. Under circumstances requiring long hours, workers' mental health should be protected through minimising the frequency of long work hours.

UK alcohol consumption during the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of drinking motives, employment and subjective mental health.

Background Previous investigations suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic effects on alcohol consumption were heterogenous and may vary as a function of structural and psychological factors. Research examining mediating or moderating factors implicated in pandemic-occasioned changes in drinking have also tended to use single-study cross-sectional designs and convenience samples. AIMS: First, to explore structural (changed employment or unemployment) and psychological (subjective mental health and drinking motives) correlates of consumption reported during the COVID-19 pandemic using a UK nationally representative (quota sampled) dataset. Second, to determine whether population-level differences in drinking during the COVID-19 pandemic (versus pre-pandemic levels) could be attributable to drinking motives. METHOD: Data collected from samples of UK adults before and during the pandemic were obtained and analysed: Step1 carried out structural equation modelling (SEM) to explore data gathered during a period of social restrictions after the UK's first COVID-19-related lockdown (27 August-15 September, 2020; n = 3,798). It assessed whether drinking motives (enhancement, social, conformity, coping), employment and the perceived impact of the pandemic on subjective mental health may explain between-person differences in self-reported alcohol consumption. Step 2 multigroup SEM evaluated data gathered pre-pandemic (2018; n = 7,902) in concert with the pandemic data from step 1, to test the theory that population-level differences in alcohol consumption are attributable to variances in drinking motives. RESULTS: Analyses of the 2020 dataset detected both direct and indirect effects of subjective mental health, drinking motives, and employment matters (e.g., having been furloughed) on alcohol use. Findings from a multigroup SEM were consistent with the theory that drinking motives explain not only individual differences in alcohol use at both time points, but also population-level increases in use during the pandemic. CONCLUSION: This work highlights socioeconomic and employment considerations when seeking to understand COVID-19-related drinking. It also indicates that drinking motives may be particularly important in explaining the apparent trend of heightened drinking during the pandemic. Limitations related to causal inference are discussed.

Mental health concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic as revealed by helpline calls.

Mental health is an important component of public health, especially in times of crisis. However, monitoring public mental health is difficult because data are often patchy and low-frequency1-3. Here we complement established approaches by using data from helplines, which offer a real-time measure of 'revealed' distress and mental health concerns across a range of topics4-9. We collected data on 8 million calls from 19 countries, focusing on the COVID-19 crisis. Call volumes peaked six weeks after the initial outbreak, at 35% above pre-pandemic levels. The increase was driven mainly by fear (including fear of infection), loneliness and, later in the pandemic, concerns about physical health. Relationship issues, economic problems, violence and suicidal ideation, however, were less prevalent than before the pandemic. This pattern was apparent both during the first wave and during subsequent COVID-19 waves. Issues linked directly to the pandemic therefore seem to have replaced rather than exacerbated underlying anxieties. Conditional on infection rates, suicide-related calls increased when containment policies became more stringent and decreased when income support was extended. This implies that financial relief can allay the distress triggered by lockdown measures and illustrates the insights that can be gleaned from the statistical analysis of helpline data.

Estimation of the number of working population at high-risk of COVID-19 infection in Korea.

OBJECTIVES: We aimed to identify occupational groups at high-risk of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection in Korea, to estimate the number of such workers, and to examine the prevalence of protective resources by employment status. METHODS: Based on the sixth Standard Occupational Classification codes, 2015 census data were linked with data from the fifth Korean Working Conditions Survey, which measured how frequently workers directly come into contact with people other than fellow employees in the workplace. RESULTS: A total of 30 occupational groups, including 7 occupations from the healthcare and welfare sectors and 23 from other sectors, were classified as high-risk occupational groups involving frequent contact with people other than fellow employees in the workplace (more than half of the working hours). Approximately 1.4 million (women, 79.1%) and 10.7 million workers (46.3%) are employed in high-risk occupations. Occupations with a larger proportion of women are more likely to be at a high-risk of infection and are paid less. For wage-earners in high-risk occupations, protective resources to deal with COVID-19 (e.g., trade unions and health and safety committees) are less prevalent among temporary or daily workers than among those with permanent employment. CONCLUSIONS: Given the large number of Koreans employed in high-risk occupations and inequalities within the working population, the workplace needs to be the key locus for governmental actions to control COVID-19, and special consideration for vulnerable workers is warranted.

How Do COVID-19 Risk, Life-Safety Risk, Job Insecurity, and Work-Family Conflict Affect Miner Performance? Health-Anxiety and Job-Anxiety Perspectives.

The coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has created challenging working conditions in coal-production activities. In addition to the massive loss of resources for miners, it has had a devastating impact on these individuals' mental health. Based on the conservation of resources (COR) theory and a resource-loss perspective, this study examined the impact of COVID-19 risk, life-safety risk, perceived job insecurity, and work-family conflict on miners' job performance. Moreover, this study investigated the mediating role of job anxiety (JA) and health anxiety (HA). The study data were collected through online structured questionnaires disseminated to 629 employees working in a coal mine in China. The data analysis and hypothesis generation were conducted using the structural equation modeling (partial least squares) method. The results demonstrated that the perception of COVID-19 risk, life-safety risk, job insecurity, and work-family conflict negatively and significantly impacted miners' job performance. In addition, JA and HA negatively mediated the relationships between the perception of COVID-19 risk, life-safety risk, perceived job insecurity, work-family conflict, and job performance. The findings of this study can give coal-mining companies and their staff useful insights into how to minimize the pandemic's effects on their operations.

Assessment of Excess Mortality in Italy in 2020-2021 as a Function of Selected Macro-Factors.

BACKGROUND: Excess mortality (EM) can reliably capture the impact of a pandemic, this study aims at assessing the numerous factors associated with EM during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. METHODS: Mortality records (ISTAT 2015-2021) aggregated in the 610 Italian Labour Market Areas (LMAs) were used to obtain the EM P-scores to associate EM with socioeconomic variables. A two-step analysis was implemented: (1) Functional representation of EM and clustering. (2) Distinct functional regression by cluster. RESULTS: The LMAs are divided into four clusters: 1 low EM; 2 moderate EM; 3 high EM; and 4 high EM-first wave. Low-Income showed a negative association with EM clusters 1 and 4. Population density and percentage of over 70 did not seem to affect EM significantly. Bed availability positively associates with EM during the first wave. The employment rate positively associates with EM during the first two waves, becoming negatively associated when the vaccination campaign began. CONCLUSIONS: The clustering shows diverse behaviours by geography and time, the impact of socioeconomic characteristics, and local governments and health services' responses. The LMAs allow to draw a clear picture of local characteristics associated with the spread of the virus. The employment rate trend confirmed that essential workers were at risk, especially during the first wave.