Unsettled Employment, Reshuffled Priorities? Career Prioritization among College-Educated Workers Facing Employment Instability during COVID-19

Abstract

Millions of workers experienced job instability during the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic. A prevailing assumption is that such experiences of instability intensify economic rationality in workers’ career decision making as a matter of course. In contrast, the authors argue that pandemic-related employment instability may have “unsettled” workers’ lives in ways that elevated nonfinancial priorities such as meaningful work. Using proportionally representative survey data ( n = 1,628), the authors compare the priorities of U.S. college-educated workers who were laid off or furloughed during the pandemic with those of workers whose jobs remained stable. Counter to expectations of heightened economic rationality, job-unstable workers were not more likely than job-stable workers to emphasize job security or salary in beliefs about good work. But they were more likely to prioritize passion for work. These findings challenge common assumptions about job prioritization in the wake of crisis-related job instability and have implications for how scholars and policy makers interpret labor force trends.