How Can a Job Insecurity Climate Emerge in an Organization and Associates with Organizational Antecedents?

Purpose: Currently, concerns about job loss have become a widespread stressor among European workers. Job insecurity can be a collective or shared stressor (i.e., job insecurity climate). However, little is known about how this collective stressor emerges and the factors that determine it. This study aimed to provide evidence concerning job insecurity as a collective stressor (i.e., job insecurity climate) and to examine its potential antecedents.

Methods: Data were collected through questionnaires. The sample consisted of 1466 employees working in 141 organizations from two European countries (Spain and Austria).

Results: The results showed a significant association between different organizational factors and job insecurity climate. These factors included organization type (public or private), the proportion of temporary workers in the organization, organizational resilience, communication, and rumors. Among these antecedents, rumors presented the strongest association with job insecurity climate. Additionally, private organizations with a higher percentage of temporary workers reported higher job insecurity climates, whereas resilient organizations with good communication had lower job insecurity climates.

Conclusions: Most of the literature has focused on individual perceptions of job insecurity. Only a few studies have conceptualized job insecurity as an organizational phenomenon. In these studies, job insecurity is considered a contextual stressor, and its consequences are examined. The present study advances this research by examining potential antecedents of job insecurity climate.