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The purpose of this paper is to test the gain and loss cycle ideas from the Conservation of Resources (COR) theory with regard to perceived employability and psychological functioning among employed workers and unemployed job seekers, respectively.

More specifically, the authors argue that perceived employability may trigger a gain cycle toward well-being among employed workers (H1), while ill-being may trigger a loss cycle toward reduced (perceived) employability among unemployed job seekers (H2). The authors test these ideas with cross-lagged analysis.

Results confirm the hypotheses: perceived employability at Time 1 positively affects well-being at Time 2 among employed workers and ill-being at Time 1 negatively impacts perceived employability at Time 2 among unemployed job seekers.

Future research should study the gain and loss cycles with more than two waves of data as this allows for a more adequate test of these ideas.

As for practitioners, the results suggest that investing in the worker’s perceived employability by offering training, career counseling, and networking opportunities, pays off as it promotes the employee’s psychological functioning. With regard to unemployed job seekers the authors advise investing in psychological counseling: the unemployed job seeker will be more able to invest in a job search, and hence perceive employability if helped in coping with job loss.

This study offers a new perspective on the relationship between perceived employability and psychological functioning by involving the principles of COR theory, in particular the gain and loss cycles.

The purpose of this paper is to define employability within the psychological literature with a focus upon perceived employability.

To achieve the aim, the paper defines five objectives as follows. First, the paper discusses how employability is interpreted in the psychological literature. Second, the paper defines perceived employability within this literature. Third, the paper goes one step further by comparing the perceived employability approach to other approaches in the psychological field, namely, approaches based on competences and dispositions. The paper concludes with an integration of the three approaches into a process model to demonstrate their interrelationships, which the authors see as the fourth objective. With approach, the paper refers to a specific view on employability, including both definitions and measures, which share significant common ground. Finally, the paper highlights some implications.

The paper concludes that each approach comes with specific advantages and disadvantages. Researchers and practitioners should use an approach according to the general research question one aims to address.

The authors believe to contribute to the employability literature in the following ways. First, the paper raises awareness that not all psychological notions of employability are equal, though they are often treated as such in the literature. Second, the paper highlights how perceived employability is tied to competences and dispositions. That is, though all notions are clearly different, they are also related.

Employees need a sustainable career to prolong their working lives. The ability, motivation and opportunity to work form an important basis for sustainable careers across the lifespan. However, over the lifespan of their careers employees are likely to experience several career shocks (e.g. becoming chronically ill or being fired) which might result in unsustainable trajectories. This study aims to contribute to the literature on sustainable careers by unraveling the process through which careers shocks relate to career (un)sustainability and what role perceptions of human resource practices play in the process.

Thirty-three in-depth retrospective interviews with participants of 50 years and older were conducted and analyzed using a template analysis.

Results showed that career shocks influence career sustainability through a process of changes in demands or changes in resources, which in turn, relate to changes in person–job fit. When person-job–fit diminished, the ability, motivation and opportunity to continue working decreased, whereas when person–job fit improved, the ability, motivation and opportunity to continue working improved as well. Organizations appear to be able to diminish the negative consequences of career shocks by offering job resources such as HR practices in response to career shocks.

A limitation of this study is the retrospective nature of the interviews, which could have resulted in recollection bias.

This study gives HRM practitioners insight into the HR practices that are effective in overcoming career shocks.

This study extends existing literature by including career shocks as possible predictors of sustainable careers.

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize job immobility concepts, e.g. staying in an unsatisfying job and perceiving limited opportunities to move and apply for another job. The existing literature on this situation of job immobility in which the employee is experiencing stuckness in the job is scattered across research domains, limited in scope and existing constructs are not clearly defined or operationalized.

In this conceptual paper, the authors propose the construct “locked at the job,” by reviewing and building on the job immobility literature and the theory of control and self-regulation.

This study defines the concept that consists of two dimensions as feeling dissatisfied in the current job and inactivity due to perceived limited job opportunities. This study proposes a conceptual model of antecedents and consequences of locked at the job, based on the person-environment fit theory.

This conceptual paper allows value to be added in practice by the conceptualization of locked at the job, in addition to providing a preview with respect to conceptual causes and consequences of this phenomenon.

Research on this job immobility phenomenon is scattered across different research domains, limited in scope and the concept has not been clearly defined or operationalized.