The Impact of Job Insecurity on Employee Happiness at Work: A Case of Robotised Production Line Operators in Furniture Industry in Lithuania

• Main Authors: Živilė Stankevičiūtė, Eglė Staniškienė, Joana Ramanauskaitė
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-02-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: job insecurity; happiness at work; job satisfaction; work engagement; affective organisational commitment; robotisation
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/3/1563

As a result of intensive robotisation over the past decade, employees have been constantly experiencing job insecurity, a term which refers to the perceived threat of job loss and the worries related to this threat. Previous studies have supported the detrimental effect of job insecurity on employees; however, the focus on happiness at work is still missing, despite the notion that a happy employee is essentially contributing to sustainable business performance. Trying to narrow the gap, the paper aims at revealing the linkage between job insecurity and happiness at work and its dimensions, namely job satisfaction, affective organisational commitment, and work engagement. Building on the hindrance stressor dimension of the stress model, and conservation of resources and psychological contract theories, the paper claims that a negative relationship exists between the constructs. Quantitative data were collected in a survey of robotised production line operators working in the furniture sector in Lithuania. As predicted, the results revealed that job insecurity had a negative impact on happiness at work as a higher-order construct and all of its dimensions. This finding should be taken seriously by organisations creating a robotised production environment while striving for sustainability.