If you live in Canada there's a good chance you love your job. If you are Canada's neighbors to the south, you are more likely to hate your job than other countries.
Those are two of the key findings from a new survey conducted by Monster.com and GfK. The survey looked at job satisfaction for 8,000 people in seven countries -- Canada, France, Germany, India, Netherlands, United Kingdom, and the United States.
Here's how workers in those countries answered the question: "How much do you love your job?"
It's hardly a surprise to see Canada and the Netherlands with the happiest workers. In a study earlier this year, the World Economic Forum looked at the the nations investing most in the health, education and talent of their workforces and the two countries were in the top 10. But in the same study, India, which had the third happiest workers in the Monster survey ranked 78th and the United States, with the most workers who hate their jobs came in 16th. Why the disparity?
It could have something to do with expectations. If you're living in the world's top economy you expect great working conditions. And while India also has a top 10 GDP, its ranking plummets to 138 in terms of GDP per capita.
"Clearly there are many variables when it comes to job satisfaction – for example, Canada and Germany have enjoyed buoyant labor markets, yet they lie at completely different ends of the happiness spectrum some of which could be driven by broader cultural differences between the two countries. More generally though, workers internationally want more out of their work and seem to have just settled for their current jobs," said Chris Moessner, Vice President for Public Affairs, GfK.
To illustrate the complexity of job satisfaction further, Germany was ranked sixth in investment in its workforce but its workers love their jobs the least of all the countries surveyed.
"What is striking about the findings is that the strength of a country’s labor market doesn’t necessarily correlate with workforce contentment," said Moessner. "While workers in challenged markets may have had fewer opportunities to advance in terms of promotions or salary during the recent downturn, it has not necessarily affected their happiness."
This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com
