Transitions from low-quality work
About 2 mins
Key points
- Almost a fifth (18%) of employees in a low-quality job in 2016–17 were still working in a low-quality role six years later.
- Only 9% of employees in high-quality work experienced a reduction in job quality between 2016–17 and 2022–23.
- 60% of employees in low-quality work moved to high-quality work between 2016–17 and 2022–23, compared with 76% of employees in high-quality work who stayed in high-quality work.
Persistent negative job experiences could lead to someone experiencing a long period of worsening health, because of continued exposure to a stressful environment. However, experiencing these factors on a shorter, temporary basis is likely to have less impact on health.
This chart looks at the persistence of low-quality work for people in employment between 2016–17 and 2022–23. Each person’s experiences at work are assessed according to five self-reported aspects of job quality: job satisfaction, job wellbeing, job autonomy, job security and pay.
Overall, there was significant movement between roles of different job quality between 2016–17 and 2022–23:
- One in ten employees in high-quality work moved into low-quality work (8.8%).
- More than half of employees in low-quality work in 2016–17 had moved to high-quality work by 2022–23 (59.8%).
- Three quarters of employees who were in a high-quality job in 2016–17 remained in high-quality employment in 2022–23 (76.2%).
- 9.2% of employees in low-quality work in 2016–17 became economically inactive in 2022–23 compared with 4.5% of employees in high-quality work.
- This indicator adapts measures used by Chandola and Zhang and is based on available data from Understanding Society.
- Aspects of low-quality work are measured as follows:
- low job satisfaction – employees who report feeling somewhat, mostly or completely dissatisfied with their job
- low job autonomy – across five dimensions of job autonomy (autonomy over job tasks, work pace, work manner, task order and work hours), an average score indicating a little or no autonomy
- low job wellbeing – across six measures of emotional perceptions of jobs (whether it inspires feelings of tension, unease, worry, depression, gloom or misery), an average score indicating that someone experiences these feelings some, most or all of the time
- low job security – perception that job loss is either likely or very likely in the next 12 months
- low pay – earnings are below two-thirds of median UK hourly pay.
- The data presented are only for employees aged 18–55 years old (self-employed people are excluded).
Source: University of Essex – Institute for Social and Economic Research, Understanding Society: Waves 8 and 14, UK, 2016–17 and 2022–23
