Throughout the last few months, StepStone and the KU Leuven have looked closely at the impact of the corona crisis. Today, both parties are unveiling the results of their study on occupational insecurity in Belgium. While 13% of all respondents was occupationally insecure due to technological progress, which refers to the extent to which individuals are concerned that their whole occupation might disappear, 61% fears significant changes for their profession.
More than 1 in 10 of respondents think that their occupation might disappear due to automation and technical progress
The pandemic gave a further boost to the ‘contact-free’ economy and will likely accelerate the speed of automation and the impact on occupations – as 57% of interviewed employers in Belgium stated they would invest in the increase of the digital and technical infrastructure in the coming months, in May 2020.
While in October 2020, StepStone & KU Leuven unveiled that 1 in 4 of employees were afraid of losing their individual job, there seems to be a degree of general occupational insecurity present, as well.
No less than 13% of the interviewed respondents admitted to thinking their occupation might disappear in the future due to technological improvements and automation.
Regarding when they think this would happen, 9% are afraid that they will need to switch to another occupation in the short term (1-2 years). Additionally, 18% are afraid that they will need to switch to another occupation later on in their career (5-10 years) due to technological developments.
More than half expects their occupation to undergo significant changes due to technological developments
Some employees in Belgium, however, are not only afraid of losing their occupation, but also of the matter in which the content of their occupation would change drastically.
A stunning 6 in 10 respondents (61%) expect that their occupation and responsibilities will undergo significant changes due to technological progress and automation.
Employees with a weaker labor market position and younger respondents feel somewhat more insecure
While there are no differences regarding gender, there seem to be specific groups attesting to either more overall occupational insecurity or content occupational insecurity:
Regarding the occupation disappearing completely, employees with a medium level of education; who are blue-collar workers seem to be more affected.
Regarding the occupation changing significantly, employees who are below 30 years old seem to be most affected. It would seem this group is certain that their occupational responsibilities will change and that they will need to learn to perform different tasks due to automation before their retirement.
In general, therefore, employees with a weaker labor market position in terms of occupation level score higher. For age, younger individuals appear to worry more about the future of the content of their occupation.
Negative consequences for both the employer and the employee
Insecurity regarding the occupation has real-life implications for both the employer and the employee.
For the employee, being insecure about their occupation disappearing has a significant negative impact on work engagement, life as well as job satisfaction. For instance, 31% of respondents – who scored highly for overall occupation insecurity – attested to having lower levels of work engagement, compared to only 18% of employees who scored lower on occupation insecurity. Results were similar for job satisfaction (29% for those who scored higher on occupational insecurity vs 13% for those who didn’t) and life satisfaction (12% vs 4%).
While there was no direct impact on job performance, a reduction in wellbeing as well as job and life satisfaction could in turn negatively affect performance. Thus, the effect on performance might be indirect through wellbeing.
In terms of consequences for the employer, worry that the content and tasks of occupations may change significantly has a significant negative impact on their employees’ counterproductive work behavior. More concretely, 5% of respondents – who scored highly for overall occupation insecurity – show counterproductive work behavior, compared to only 1,5% of employees who scored lower on occupation insecurity.
Methodology
This study was performed in collaboration with dr. Lara C. Roll and Prof. Dr. Hans De Witte of the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of KU Leuven (Research Group Work, Organisational & Personnel Psychology; WOPP-O2L). This project has received funding from the European Union’s ‘Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme’ under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 896341.
The data were collected by means of an online survey in February and March 2021. In total 1131 respondents participated in this study (languages: 56% Dutch, 33% French and 11% English).
The sample was consisted out of 46% of the participants being male, 53% female and 1% who identified themselves as non-binary or preferred not to answer. 49% were between 30 and 49 years old, 45% were between 50 and 65 years of age, and only 6% were below 30. The sample was mainly highly educated (75 % diploma of higher education), with 31% having a non-university degree in higher education, and 44% a university degree. About 44% were upper white-collar workers, middle or higher management staff (e.g., manager, engineer, university lecturer, etc.), 48% were lower to intermediate level white-collar employees (e.g., secretary, computer programmer, schoolteacher, etc.), 6% were skilled blue-collar workers (e.g., electrician, technician, etc.), and 2% were unskilled blue-collar workers (e.g. machine operators, production worker, etc.). 71% worked in the private sector, 20% worked for the government or the public sector, 5% worked for a state-owned enterprise and 4% reported “other”.