The Job Expectations of Immigrant Workers

Att'al information was collected by means of a multiple choice questionaire & instructured interviews from 173 full time direct F manual operatives working in multi-racial groups on short cycle repetitive work in an Electronics Co. 34.6% of the 78 immigrants, who were mainly West Indians, were overall or generally dissatisfied with their job compared to 12.6% of the native British workers. The proportions of workers expressing satisfaction with each of 47 aspects of their jobs were compared for overall satisfied immigrants & natives. For overall satisfied workers, the proportion of immigrants expressing satisfaction was higher than natives for 30 of the 47 aspects. For overall dissatisfied workers the proportion of immigrants was neither generally higher or lower than natives. The diff's between the 2 proportions for immigrants was greater than the diff's between the 2 proportions for natives for 30 of the 47 aspects. Job needs were investigated by 2 means, firstly a list of statements concerning 47 aspects of jobs which R's endorsed if they considered them to be important, & secondly a list of 5 statements, equivalent approximately to the 5 Maslow needs, which R's were asked to rank. % endorsement of statements did not differ substantially for immigrants & natives, but unlike natives, on no statement was the % endorsement of the immigrant group so low as to indicate comparative unimportance. A comparison of scale value for the 5 statements showed that immigrants attached less importance than the natives to the need for satisfying work. It is byp'd that (1) their lack of norms result in immigrants exhibiting less discrimination in their job expectations, & that such immigrants' job expectations are greater than those of native workers, & (2) that the relationship between job satisfaction & the extent to which job expectations are fulfilled differs for immigrant & native workers, in that immigrants exhibit a greater rage of job satisfaction than the natives, whose att's as well as expectations have been moderated by experience. AA.