Caught this fascinating piece over the weekend from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Monthly Labor Review publication titled Worker's expectations about losing and replacing their jobs: 35 years of change. The piece describes changes over time in American worker's feelings about job security, confidence, and (I would argue), their ability to focus wholly on doing their actual job well, and not just trying not to lose that job. 
This data about worker's expectations comes from analysis of data from the General Social Survey which has been administered each year since 1972. The results of the General Social Survey are representative of the adult population of the United States, as the respondents are in line with population characteristics drawn from the population in surveys of the U.S. Census Bureau.
In the piece, author Charles Weaver notes that:
"Workers were less secure about retaining their jobs in 2010 and 2012 than in 1977 and 1978; they also were less secure about the ease with which they would find a comparable job if they were separated. As might be expected, the two measures of job security track unemployment, although other factors certainly play a role as well"
This conclusion is drawn from the responses to the following two specific survey questions (repeated every year in the survey)
1. Thinking about the next 12 months, how likely do you think it is that you will lose your job or be laid off—very likely, fairly likely, not too likely, or not at all likely?
2. About how easy would it be for you to find a job with another employer with approximately the same income and fringe benefits you have now? Would you say it would be very easy, somewhat easy, or not easy at all?
As Mr. Weaver reports, over time the number of workers who felt it was very likely or fairly likely to lose a job or be laid off rose to 11.2% from 7.7%, while only 48.3% felt it would be very easy or somewhat easy to find a comparable job, down from 59.2% in the late 1970s.
So in the period from about 1977 to 2012 job security on the macro level had declined, while confidence in one's ability to find a comparable job had also declined. There are potentially thousands of reasons for these declines, and while important, and interesting, are not why I wanted to post about these findings today.
What I thought about was the two questions themselves, and how an individual worker feels about them might relate to their job satisfaction, performance, and potentially their engagement.
Are you in fear of losing your job or getting laid off? If you were laid off, how easy/hard could it be to find a comparable job?
The answers to these questions can tell you plenty about workers. They speak to uncertainty, fear, anxiety, etc. about work and their livelihoods. The less optimistic one feels about job security, the more likely they are to approach work as something to fear, a place not to screw up, and I think these kinds of fears might improve short-term performance, (and other things not directly related to performance, like showing up on time, following rules, etc.)., but a anxious worker is not going to be a happy worker, (or an engaged worker) very long.
For those reasons, (and probably more), employers would probably like to know how their employees would respond to the two questions above. Wouldn't you like to know if your workers are tiptoeing around, hoping the other shoe isn't about to drop?
Sure. But here is another sure thing. You will never find either of those two questions on any internal employee survey.