Unsettled Employment, Reshuffled Priorities? Career Prioritization among College-Educated Workers Facing Employment...

Millions of workers experienced job instability during the COVID-19 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 non-financial priorities such as meaningful work. Using proportionally representative survey data (N=1628), the authors compare the priorities of US college-educated workers who were laid off or furloughed during the pandemic to those 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 policymakers interpret labor force trends.