Employment challenges rank second among global concerns

A new study has revealed that employment and working conditions are among the main shared anxieties globally.

New findings from Gallup, launched at the World Governments Summit, reveal that work is one of the biggest issues for adults globally. When asked, “What is the most important problem your country is facing?”, it ranked in the top four along with the economy, politics, and safety.

The report examined perceived problems in 107 countries, and work issues were identified as the primary problem for 10 per cent of respondents, second billing only to financial concerns.

Regionally speaking, work appeared as the second top issue in the sub-Sahara (19 per cent), the Middle East and North Africa (12 per cent), and former Soviet states (13 per cent).

These percentages are stronger considering 12 established global concerns were identified. Beyond the four aforementioned categories, which make up around half of the polling, the other half featured food and shelter, social issues, the environment, and health, all polling at 3 per cent, respectively.

Clearly, work issues are far-reaching and not region-specific to the degree of other issues.

As would be expected, the higher a country’s unemployment rate, the higher the likelihood it was selected as the country’s top issue.

Country income also followed this trend: high-income countries had only 4 per cent of participants put work as a top concern, but this figure more than doubled in upper-middle-income countries, doubled again for lower-middle-income countries, and then dropped to 13 per cent for low-income countries.

This drop is assumed to be because residents are focusing on meeting basic needs, illustrating the main cause of regional nuances.

However, holding a job is only half of the issue. Public dissatisfaction also arose from the quality of jobs, and more specifically, the lack of these jobs. Wage stagnation and general availability of jobs were also part of this consideration.

This pattern, the report suggests, illustrates a generally heightened concern for systemic issues, and shows that, when work is labelled as a national problem, it is not just job status that is referred to.

This is supported by the fact that employment status did not equate to different responses – people who are currently employed were just as likely as those not in the workforce to report work as the biggest issue facing their country.

As the report highlights, if the overall concern was driven by job insecurity, disengaged workers would show a marginally higher concern. Of the respondents who marked work as the top national problem, 17 per cent were unemployed, but 20 per cent were either employed or out of the workforce.

And this is strengthened when looking at participating employee satisfaction levels: 8 per cent were actively disengaged, 8 per cent were not engaged, and another 9 per cent were engaged. As such, those who experienced meaningful or fulfilling work were just as sensitive to wider employment concerns.

Globally, employee engagement has fallen to 21 per cent, of which over 60 per cent are disengaged, and another 17 per cent are actively disengaged.

Clearly, workers agree that just having a job isn’t satisfactory on its own, and employees are less likely to settle for subpar jobs regardless of job availability.

One of the report’s conclusions is the suggestion that creating more jobs would only solve part of the problem. Employees globally are looking for engagement and dignity in their work, and when this is not met, individuals, companies and national companies suffer.