Reactions to Covid-19: The Impact of Job Insecurity on Survivors’ Attitudes in Five-star hotels

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Higher Institute for Specific Studies, Heliopolis Future Academy

Abstract

The spread of Covid-19 and traveling restriction heavily hit the hospitality industry. Consequently, many hotels had to implement the strategy of downsizing in order to reduce the cost of employment. Accordingly, survivors’ workers have been feeling fear from future and job insecurity. Earlier studies showed the overwhelming influence of Covid-19 on hospitality industry, while a few is known about such impact on employees’ reactions. This research examines the influence of job insecurity on the survivors’ attitudes (i.e. organizational commitment, trust, and turnover intention) in downsized five start hotels. Data for this study was collected via self-administrated questionnaires with employees from 79 hotels in Cairo, Sharm El Shiekh and Hurghada. A total of 522 questionnaires were randomly distributed to a convenience sample of hotel staff. Among the questionnaires returned, 452 were useable ones, representing a response rate of 60.27%. The results indicated that survivors’ perceptions of job insecurity post Covid-19 have a strong positive relationship with survivors’ intention to quit. The results also revealed that this relationship is weakened by survivors’ high perception of organization commitment and trust. Furthermore, the results suggested that survivors who propose to move out of their hotel target to change their career. However, losing skilled employee may become a significant risk for hotel industry. The implications of the study are discussed.

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