Feeling Marginalized: Turnover of Public-Sector It Professionals

Current market conditions are decreasing the desirability of IT jobs in the public-sector of the United States. Many IT workers in state and local government are facing layoffs, furloughs, loss of benefits and increased payroll deductions. The present circumstances challenge previous notions of support for those working in the public arena. This diminishes the primary incentives associated with public work. Is it also encouraging the best IT professionals to leave? In this empirical study, it is proposed that job satisfaction, perceived organizational support, affective commitment, perceived supervisor support, and organizational rewards will be inversely related to turnover intention when job embeddedness is low. These assertions were tested following a survey of 348 IT workers from 18 public-sector organizations. The results confirmed the hypotheses. Collectively, the predictors accounted for 57.8% of the variance in turnover intention in the research model. This research discusses the implications of these findings, and reviews limitations and future research directions.