Job Insecurity and Emotional Exhaustion: Examining the Buffering Role of Perceived Employability

Abstract

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The outbreak of COVID-19 has triggered an unprecedented crisis in all industries and has had a considerable impact on individual employment. Research on job insecurity has focused on various antecedents, including personal and organisational level outcomes of job insecurity, and has recognised the detrimental effect of job insecurity on employee well-being. Among the various sub-dimensions of work-related well-being, emotional exhaustion has significantly prompted actions of detaching oneself emotionally and cognitively from work. The present study intends to explore the association between job insecurity and emotional exhaustion at work, among the employees working in the financial service sector (India). Drawing from COR, the study further examines the buffering role of perceived employability on this association. The data were collected from 254 employees working in the financial service sector, using a structured questionnaire. Our results suggest that employees, to a large extent, experience job insecurity, which directly affects the emotional well-being, causing emotional exhaustion. Furthermore, this research explored the role of perceived employability as a personal coping resource that buffers the impact of job insecurity on emotional exhaustion.

Keywords: Job Insecurity, Emotional Exhaustion, Perceived Employability, COR Theory

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