Comparing the Employability of Public and Private Employees: The Role of PSM and Red Tape in Linking Employability and Work Engagement

Although the employability of employees has increasingly become an issue for both public and private employers, the employability in especially public organizations is under pressure due to its relatively aging workforce compared to the private sector. Moreover, scholars argue that employability outcomes such as work engagement are particularly under pressure among public-sector employees relative to private-sector employees because public-sector employees have to deal with red tape and experience possible hindrance of their public service motivation (PSM). At the same time, these propositions are understudied, and scholars call for more contextualized research comparing the public and private sectors. This study therefore compares the moderating effects of PSM and red tape in the relationships between perceived employability and work engagement across the public and private sectors. Based on comparative structural equation modeling on samples of Dutch government employees (N = 9,427) and private-sector employees (N = 2,057), it is concluded that PSM undermines the relation between perceived internal and external employability and work engagement of both public- and private-sector employees, respectively. Moreover, red tape is less undermining for public-sector employees in the relationships between respectively perceived internal and external employability and work engagement than for private-sector employees. Based on the results, contributions are discussed.