The Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Perceived Employment (In)Security in Switzerland

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic and the way this health crisis has been handled has changed labour market inequalities. We argue that workers are affected differently by changed work and employment conditions, depending on the workers’ employment relations and study the impact of remote work, polarization of the core, and peripheral workforce as well as changes in working time during the Covid-19 pandemic on perceived employment insecurity. Based on data from the Swiss Household Panel and its special wave (“Covid-19 Study”), our results show that the perceived employment insecurity is related to employment strategies aimed at increasing flexibility in the labour market. In particular, short-time work increased perceived employment insecurity.

Keywords

• covid-19 pandemic
• perceived employment insecurities
• remote work
• flexibilization
• atypical employment