How COVID-Induced Job Search Anxiety Affects New Labor Market Entrants' Job Search and Well-Being.

Abstract

New labor market entrants (i.e., first-time job seekers) face significant hurdles when searching for a job for the first time, with these stressors likely amplified during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the current investigation, we consider the maladaptive and adaptive consequences of COVID-induced job search anxiety, defined as feeling anxious and tense in one’s job search due to issues imposed by the pandemic. We theorize that this state of anxiety can prompt job seekers to engage in affect-focused rumination (maladaptive) and problem-solving pondering (adaptive) week-to-week. We further argue that COVID-induced job search anxiety will affect job seekers’ subsequent striving for their dream job and insomnia (i.e., both performance and well being implications). Finally, we consider how stable beliefs relevant to life in the COVID-19 pandemic (i.e., beliefs in conspiracy theories; beliefs in COVID-19 being a public health crisis) have the potential to affect the aforementioned within-person relationships. Using a sample of 162 new labor market entrants who provided 816 weekly data points, results indicated that COVID-induced job search anxiety positively related to affect-focused rumination and problem-solving pondering; affect-focused rumination hindered striving for one’s dream job and promoted insomnia the next week, whereas problem-solving pondering helped encourage striving for one’s dream job. Further, the detrimental effects of COVID-induced job search anxiety via affect focused rumination were amplified for those who held higher levels of conspiracy theory beliefs.