Impact of Job Insecurity due to COVID-19 on the Psychological Wellbeing and Resiliency of Food Delivery Personnel

Abstract

This study examines when and why job insecurity due to COVID-19 leads to decreased well-being in hotel (restaurant) delivery personnel. It also examines resiliency as a moderator between job insecurity and employee anxiety. Data was collected in time lags from 253 respondents of food delivery personnel in hotel restaurants. The findings suggest that job insecurity due to COVID-19 decreased an employee’s well-being via financial stress. Moreover, resiliency played a buffering role in mitigating the damaging impact of job insecurity on fanatical stress. Theoretical and practical implications are included in this paper. COVID-19 is considered as most devastating and fatal diseases of this century since it is negatively impacting many industries, including hotels and restaurants. While some researchers have reflected upon the nature of this disease, the arrival of possible vaccine and economic outcomes, the employees’ psychological outcomes are largely ignored areas of research. Hence, this study attempts to fill this gap by adding relevant knowledge to the field. This study contributes to literature in various ways. Firstly, this study proposes and measures employees’ job insecurity due to infectious disease COVID-19 in hotels. Secondly, anxiety is measured as a mechanism to explain the relationship between perceived job insecurity and employees’ psychological well-being.Thirdly, this study proposes and empirically tests the factors which may decrease employees’ well-being during the outbreak of a COVID-19 pandemic. Fourthly, this study examines employees’ personality trait of resiliency as a buffering factor between job insecurity and employee anxiety. Finally, this research validates the conservation of resources theory in terms of external stressor and personal resource in the form of resiliency. Hence this study is a timely response against the current coronavirus pandemic to expand the scope in domain of mental health specifically among hotel employees to provide insights to practitioners. The objective of this paper is to examine the impact of job insecurity on mental health of hotel employees and to recommend a few avenues for practitioners to mitigate its devastating effects.