Exploring perceptions of job insecurity and safety climate among offshore maritime workers following the 2014 petroleum recession: A two-study design

The purpose of the master thesis was to examine safety climate and job insecurity perceptions in the Norwegian petroleum industry in light of the 2014 oil crisis, using a twostudy design. Study 1 consisted of four interviews with health, safety, environment and quality managers from Norwegian shipping companies who had ongoing contracts with a major Norwegian hydrocarbon producing company. The results from Study 1 indicated that the safety focus had improved between 2013, 2015 and 2017. The informants experienced low job insecurity, but reported higher job insecurity for maritime workers and other employees. Study 2 included three extensive surveys that were collected in 2013, 2015 and 2017, in which the respondents were maritime workers on offshore vessels. The results indicated that the maritime workers’ perceptions of job insecurity increased from 2013 to 2017, while perceptions of overall safety climate did not differ across the three time points. A small improvement in workers’ perceptions of safety climate specific to the shipping company level was found from 2013 to 2017. Overall, the shipping companies demonstrated that their safety systems were resilient, which contributed to upholding the safety climate among offshore maritime workers following the 2014 oil recession, although the workers were more worried about losing their job after the crisis. To our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate whether the oil crisis in 2014 was related to changes in offshore maritime workers’ perceptions of job insecurity and safety climate