Workers in German UB II Job Centers—Stress Caused by New Public Management?

Michael Olejniczak
Dirk Salmon

DOI: 10.2190/WR.17.3-4.b

Abstract

Under the heading New Public Management (NPM), many countries have tried to streamline public administration aiming at optimizing efficiency. The existing NPM literature mainly focuses on the impact on organizations and tends to neglect the impact on employees. However, this public management reform can take its toll on employees. In our study, the aim is to examine the relationship between working conditions determined by NPM and stress on a level that could lead to adverse health effects for the employees. This study uses a quantitative method with an online survey including 4,500 employees of German job centers. The German labor administration is a branch of government that is designed strictly according to the principles of NPM: target agreements, controlling, and benchmarking are ubiquitous instruments in the daily routine of the employees. To examine the perceived stress of the employees we use the measurement of Effort-Reward Imbalance (ERI), which is often applied in German research and was originally developed by Siegrist (1996). Ahigh ERI-value means that the employee's perceived effort, that is, his/her perception of the effort he/she puts into the organization, is higher than the reward received. The ERI model directly refers to adverse health effects of stress. With our quantitative research we can present two important findings: (1) that the ERI of German job center employees is significantly higher than the German average; and (2) that working conditions under NPM are positively and highly significantly associated with ERI.

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