Turnover intention among new generation rural migrant workers in China: the role of job embeddedness

The new generation rural migrant workers have played a significant role in China’s economic development as these workers are a vital labor supply of China’s industrial workers. Even so, a recent recruitment trend has revealed that most of these rural migrant workers demonstrate short-term employment and exhibit a high turnover rate which subsequently threatens the industrial labor supply as well as the social development in China. This study aims at addressing the turnover issue of the migrant workers in China by proposing an empirical research model aimed at reducing the turnover intention of these migrant workers. The proposing theoretical framework is underpinned by the triadic reciprocal of the social cognitive theory which suggests that interpersonal factors, along with elements of job embededdness, influence one’s turnover intention. Individuals who have high community embeddedness may strengthen the embeddedness into the organization and then mitigate their turnover intention.The model was tested by means of PLS-SEM using data that was collected from 379 new generation rural migrant workers in the manufacturing sector in Guizhou Province, China. The results indicated that organizational identification, remuneration, organization embeddedness, and community embeddedness are negatively related to turnover intention; while work overload was positively associated with turnover intention. Organization embeddedness has significant mediating effects on the relationships among the organizational identification, remuneration, and career adaptability on turnover intention; whereas community embeddedness has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between organization embeddedness and turnover intention. This study contributes to managers in the manufacturing industry and government policymakers in China to disseminate the potential discrimination on the new generation rural migrant workers and concern on their well-being to prevent high turnover intention.