Job and life satisfaction of apprentices: the effect of personality, social relations, and decent work

Based on the social cognitive model and on the psychology of working theory, this research aims to study the job and life satisfaction of apprentices, considering proactive personality, person-supervisor and person-group fit, occupational self-efficacy, and decent work as antecedents. The participants were 530 Swiss apprentices enrolled in a three-year VET program with the Federal VET Diploma. The results show that proactivity is directly linked with person-supervisor and person-group fit, occupational self-efficacy, and job and life satisfaction. Decent work is related positively with job satisfaction. Person-supervisor and person-group fit seem to directly influence occupational self-efficacy. Decent work, in turn, seems to mediate the relationship between person-supervisor and person-group fit and job satisfaction. In conclusion, this study suggests that encouraging apprentices’ proactivity, person-supervisor and person-group fit at work could be crucial to improving their perceptions of decent work and increasing their job and life satisfaction.