Why choose a public sector job?: A quantitative study into the motives of newcomers and job switchers

Abstract

Public managers have to deal with major challenges that put pressure on the public sector as an employer, caused by declining budgets which lead to downsizing, organizational restructuring, and high expectations to perform better with fewer resources (Piatak, 2017; Borst, 2018). These pressures have affected the public image of the model employer and play out at a time when there are already radical changes in the world of work of public employees including a shift from detailed job descriptions to possibilities for job crafting, and from life-time employment to precarious employment (Schaufeli, 2013; Hesketh & Cooper, 2017; Bozeman & Ponomariov, 2009). These radical changes force public organizations to increasingly focus on the management of human capital (Schaufeli & Salanova, 2007).