Abstract
The economic crisis in the wake of the coronavirus epidemic is affecting the lives, jobs and incomes of a lot of people. Certain sectors of the economy have come to a standstill or stalled for a time, causing many to lose their jobs and be forced to pursue other career options than originally planned. The COVID-19 pandemic caused a deep economic crisis that caused workers to feel insecure, which also had a negative impact on the lives and characteristics of individuals at work. In the course of our research, we conducted a survey of employees in small and medium-sized enterprises in Hungary in order to find out how the coronavirus crisis affected them. In Hungary, the sectors most affected by the epidemic (e.g., hospitality, tourism, automotive) had an intense impact, as the consequences of restrictions on mobility and social distance emerged in the very early stages of the crisis. The survey was conducted in July 2021 after the end of the second wave of the epidemic, with a total of 613 participants. Our results confirmed that the coronavirus crisis had a significant impact on the respondents’ feelings of job insecurity and financial situation. There is a significant connection between the downsizing of Hungarian small and medium-sized enterprises and the feeling of job insecurity among employees. There was also a significant link between the organizational measures taken against the crisis and the financial situation of the employees. Thus, based on the results obtained, it can be concluded that the coronavirus crisis has had a negative impact on the lives of individuals through the workplaces.
Highlights
The disease caused by the 2019 coronavirus (COVID-19) was first detected in China in late December 2019 and soon spread rapidly around the world
During the assessment of job insecurity, we examined our variables by analysis of variance
In testing our first hypothesis, when we examined the relationship between headcount reduction due to the COVID-19 and job insecurity, the homogeneity of variance was impaired (p = 0.000), with a mean job insecurity of 5.81
Summary
The disease caused by the 2019 coronavirus (COVID-19) was first detected in China in late December 2019 and soon spread rapidly around the world. On 11 March 2020, the WHO (World Health Organization) declared COVID-19 a “pandemic” [1]. Some nations have declared a state of emergency and introduced a partial lockdown to control the current third wave [9,10], which has restricted the movement of people and has an impact on the world of work [11,12,13]. There has been a significant increase in work from home in countries where this has not been significant before, e.g., in the case of Hungary or Slovakia [18]. The introduction of teleworking and the effective implementation of the digital transformation will ensure the sustainability of organizations and workplaces
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