Does fear of COVID-19 undermine career optimism? A time-lagged quantitative inquiry of non-managerial employees

Abstract

PurposeThis study intends to examine the impact of a fear of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on workers' career optimism via perceived job insecurity among non-managerial working restaurant employees.Design/methodology/approachTime-lagged quantitative data were collected in two waves from 316 non-managerial on-job restaurant employees. Structural equation modeling technique was applied to examine the measurement and structural model.FindingsThe study showed that workers' fear of COVID-19 positively impacts their job insecurity. Further, the study found that increasing level of job insecurity depletes workers' career optimism—an outlook of their future career prospects.Research limitations/implicationsThe study suggests organizations should work to make employees feel secure in terms of their job continuity and career progression. Eventually, this would support employees in shielding themselves against possible resource loss (e.g. career optimism) due to pandemic crises.Originality/valueExtant literature has tested the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on employees' workplace attitudes and behaviors such as job satisfaction (e.g. Bajrami et al., 2021) and safety performance (e.g. Kim et al., 2021). However, little has been researched on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on employees' future career outlook, particularly of non-essential workers in the hospitality industry. To the best of the author's knowledge, an explicit examination of the impact of COVID-19 fear on career optimism has not been conducted previously. Hence, this study will not only be a valuable contribution in the literature of career management, but will also yield important practical implications.