EMPLOYEE SUSCEPTIBILITY TO EXPERIENCING JOB INSECURITY

Employees attach value to their job features/total job and when they perceive threats to these and experience feelings of powerlessness, their level of job insecurity increases. Since job insecurity is a subjective phenomenon, the study aims to assess who is more susceptible to experiencing job insecurity by assessing biographical correlates. The research adopts a formal, hypothesis-testing approach where quantitative data were collected using a cross-sectional, survey method from a sample of 1620 employees. The results, generated using the ANOVA model, indicate that biographical influences do exist in terms of job insecurity. The implication is that change managers need to take cognisance of these influences and develop suitable strategies for each group to reduce the prevalence of job insecurity. Recommendations are made in this regard. Key words: importance of job features; existence of job features; perceived threats to job features; importance of total job; perceived threats to total job; powerfulness/powerlessness; biographical correlates JEL: J28, M12 2 have impacted tremendously on organisational structures and have created a continuous need for organisational changes in terms of retrenchments, rightsizing, mergers and acqui-sitions and downsizing. As a result of these changes, job insecurity has emerged as one of the most important issues in working life and has brought the issue of insecure working conditions to the forefront (Sverke, Hellgren & Näswall, 2002). 2 The definition and nature of job insecurity Job insecurity is situated between employment and unemployment because it refers to employed people who feel threatened by unemployment (Hartley et al., 1991). Job insecurity has been conceptualised from two points of view, that is, as a multi-dimensional concept or as a global concept. In terms of th