Searching for a Job on the Contemporary Labour Market: The Role of Dispositional Employability

Abstract

By acknowledging the uncertainty and unpredictability of the job search process in an unemployment setting, the present study explored the predictive strength of dispositional employability in job search behaviours. Dispositional employability has been recognized as a potentially important personal resource that promotes job opportunities. However, it has rarely been assessed in an unemployment setting to date. According to recent employability models that differentiate between distal (i.e., personal strengths) and proximal (e.g., perceived employability) determinants of behaviour on the labour market, we hypoth- esized that: (i) dispositional employability relates positively to job search intensity and (ii) perception of one’s employment possibilities (i.e., perceived employability) serves as an explanatory mechanism of this relationship. The hypothesized structural model was tested among a heterogeneous sample of 533 unemployed persons in Croatia. The results of structural equation modelling provided support for our hypotheses: dispositional employability related positively to job search intensity via perceived employ- ability. Accordingly, nurturing dispositional employability may be beneficial for unemployed persons as it relates positively to engagement in job search behaviour.

Keywords

• dispositional employability
• perceived employability
• job search behaviour
• unemployment