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We use 2015–2018 European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions longitudinal data for four European countries (the UK, Germany, France, and Italy) and a dynamic trivariate panel data model to analyze the complex relationship between poverty, work intensity, and disability. We find evidence of genuine state dependence in the three processes and feedback effects from past poverty to work intensity in all countries and from past poverty to disability in the UK, Germany, and Italy. Disability is detrimental to poverty, despite the mitigating role played by disability cash benefits. The magnitude of this effect seems to be associated with the average expenditure on social protection benefits and its distribution across functions. We stress the importance of accounting for the extra costs of disability and the key role work intensity plays in the disability–poverty connection. Finally, adopting a joint estimation strategy appears crucial to consistently estimating the relationship between the three processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A resource perspective suggests a protective direct effect of work scheduling autonomy (WSA) on self-endangering work behaviours (working harder, working longer). However, from a social exchange perspective deriving benefit from WSA could lead to the obligation to give something back when it is needed (e.g., high time pressure) and expected (e.g., work-home culture of the company). Despite the direct protective effect, we thus suggest that WSA acts as a moderator that, under certain organizational culture conditions, facilitates the positive relationship between periods of high time pressure and self-endangering work behaviours. In a five-weeks weekly diary study (N = 277) we examined whether WSA can act as a moderator creating an interactional pattern with time pressure, a hindering work-home culture or psychological ownership, in which the genuine protective effect of WSA can be undermined. The results of the multilevel analysis showed a negative direct relationship between WSA (within-persons) and working harder (protective main effect). However, moderation analysis showed that WSA (between-persons) could intensify the positive relationship between time pressure and working harder for employees working within a hindering work-home culture. We observed no such interactive pattern with psychological ownership, but report a positive relationship between psychological ownership and self-endangering work behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores how automation affects work intensity. Based on the findings, on the one hand, a higher automation level in a sector is characterised by a higher number of individuals working at high speeds. On the other hand, no robust effect was found on working to tight deadlines or working longer hours. These findings are consistent when controlling for different company and country factors. The results, first, imply that in the context of the growing prevalence of automation workers who do or will have to work with such technologies might face degradation of their working conditions. From a policy perspective, the findings indicate that overwork-related regulations that control overtime will likely not curb the negative effects of automation on working conditions as they might not cover working intensity, which is often difficult to measure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sought is to provide a unique examination of what constitutes extreme work for the HR professional, and in turn the extent to which HR professionals are engaged in such work. Granter et al. (2019) multidimensional theoretical framework of work intensity (organizational, temporal, emotional and physical) challenges was used as an anchor to explore and understand these issues. The paper is based on a thematic analysis of interviews with Australian HR professionals capturing the nature, complexity and intensity of their role, and the implications on the HR professional, inclusive of those resulting from the dark side of HR. Granter et al. (2019) work intensity challenges (organisational, temporal, emotion and physical) were found to be intrinsic to the role of the HR professional; the complex and intense nature of the role further found to pose a risk to the HR professional's health and well-being, thus supporting the contention that HR is an extreme form of work. In establishing HR as a form of extreme work, this research offers a unique contribution that not only adds to the extreme work literature but also further supports the idea that work intensity is critical to the conceptualisation of extreme work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Research regarding the physical needs of professional golf players is lacking. With advances in wearable technology, it has become easier to analyze physiological responses such as heart rate (HR) to determine activity energy expenditure (AEE). The purpose of the study was to evaluate exercise intensity (EI) and AEE during 4 consecutive tournament's golf rounds using a popular wrist-based HR monitoring. Hypothesis: Wearable systems for HR monitoring can be used to provide an accurate estimate of energy expenditure. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Level of Evidence: Level 3. Methods: A total of 20 male professional golfers participated in the study. Each player was monitored during an official tournament consisting of 4 rounds of 18 holes. EI and AEE were determined using HR wrist monitoring (Whoop Strap 2.0). We calculated the percentage of HRmax (%HRmax) and the percentage of HRres (%HRres) and the AEE in kcal/min using Keytel's formula. Results: The calculated mean %HRmax and %HRres for the study population were 56.4% ± 1.8% and 40.5% ± 2.6%, respectively. Considering American College of Sports Medicine guidelines, these average percentages correspond to a moderate EI. The average caloric expenditure was 5.4 ± 0.4 kcal/min and 1555.8 ± 157.8 kcal per round considering an average golf round duration of 288.3 ± 19.5 minutes. Conclusion: A professional player's golf round is moderate physical activity. The AEE of this activity was equal to 5.4 cal/min, which is moderate energy consumption. Clinical Relevance: These data could help golf coaches and conditioning coaches to have a better understanding of the load placed on golfers during tournaments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors use data from the British Skills and Employment Surveys to document and to try to account for sustained work intensification between 2001 and 2017. They estimate the determinants of work intensity, first using four waves of the pooled cross-section data, then using a constructed pseudo-panel of occupation–industry cells. The latter approach suggests biases in cross-section models of work intensity, associated with unobserved fixed effects in specific occupations and industries. The pseudo-panel analysis can account for slightly more than half (51%) of work intensification using variables that measure effort-biased technological change, effort-biased organizational change, the growing requirement for learning new things, and the rise of self-employment. The authors interpret the work intensification and these effects within a power-resources framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the employment effects of the 2019 minimum wage increase in Spain on individual probabilities of losing employment status (extensive margin) and lowering work intensity (intensive margin). To do so, we use variation of workers' exposure to the reform by comparing monthly employment transitions into unemployment and reductions in number of working hours between employees earning less than the minimum wage (treatment group) and those earning more and that should therefore be unaffected by the reform (control group). We find that the new minimum wage significantly increased the probability of experiencing unemployment (1.7 percentage points) and a reduction in work intensity (0.9 percentage points) for treated workers after one year. Our results suggest substantial heterogeneity by age, prior work intensity, economic sector and geographical region of employees affected by the reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does removing constraints on the time and place of work benefit the utility of workers and firms? We design a randomized experiment of a sample of workers in a large Italian company; workers are randomly divided into a treated group that engages in flexible place and time of work (which we call "smart working") one day per week for nine months and a control group that continues to work traditionally. By comparing the treated and control groups, we find causal evidence that the flexibility of smart working increases the productivity of workers. We estimate a decrease of one day of leave on average per month, and we exclude a significant decline in objective productivity in any month. We also find sizeable improvements in well-being and work–life balance, and we observe that men also increase the time dedicated to household and care activities. This paper was accepted by Yan Chen, behavioral economics and decision analysis. Funding: This work was supported by the Italian Presidency of the Council of Ministries and European Commission (Italy's Department for Equal Opportunities and t). Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4767. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The job demands–control/support (JDC/JDCS) models are highly influential in the HRM and employee well-being literature. Despite the high face validity, however, research has failed to find convincing empirical support for the 'buffer' hypothesis suggested by the JDC/JDCS models. In this article the authors explore this issue from three perspectives. First, they test the controversial 'buffer' hypothesis using a large nationally representative matched employer–employee sample from Britain. Second, they examine the role of teamwork HRM practices as a moderator of the buffering effect of job control against job demands on employee well-being. Finally, incorporating occupational level data into the analysis, the authors further explore the moderating effects of teamwork under different occupation-specific work intensity. The analysis suggests that there is strong evidence supporting the 'buffering' hypothesis. Also, it was found that teamwork moderates the buffering effect for employee intrinsic job satisfaction. Finally, the moderating effect of teamwork differs between occupations with different levels of work intensity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The expansion of teleworking and the digital transition movement have given companies and workers great flexibility, albeit with significant organisational consequences. The recent COVID-19 pandemic further reinforced the scale of this impact. Thus, the current research aims to understand whether the multiple dimensions of telework have impacted upon workers' time management and work intensity through the unprecedented experiences during the pandemic and, in particular, to assess whether telework intensifies work, in what ways and the main reasons for this. The article analyses the literature on teleworking and work intensity and presents a documentary analysis on the subject, in addition to presenting the results of an exploratory study carried out in 2021 in Portugal which investigates the impact of teleworking on workers' time management. The article underlines that although teleworking can increase a worker's well-being by eliminating travel time, it presents several risks, namely it can intensify work through increased pressure to meet objectives and targets. Therefore, it is essential to develop research on the effects of telework, particularly assessing the relationship between telework and work intensification, as well as its effects on working conditions and workers' well-being. This research will be an important resource for regulating labour laws and designing human resource management policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the paper, we analyze one of the aspects of measuring poverty and social exclusion in the world within the context of the Europe 2030 Strategy, which is represented by very low work intensity. Using the data obtained from the EU-SILC 2021 statistical survey (for Slovakia and the Czech Republic), we apply logistic regression methods and generalized linear models to quantify the impact of relevant categorical factors on the Binary dependent variable very low work intensity of Slovak and Czech households. Based on the obtained results, wethe n process a comparative analysis, through which we quantify the same and also different features of these countries in terms of (quasi-)joblessness.

High work intensity (HWI) can occur in various occupational groups and induce health disorders, which means occu-pational health risk (OHR) assessment is necessary. This article describes methodical approaches to assessing OHR caused by HWI with a possibility to examine contributions made by its specific components and transition to personified risk assessment. The suggested approaches to assessing OHR caused by HWI include subjective assessment of the factor and health self-assessment. They allow identifying additional likelihood of health disorders and performing further risk assessment when exposure to HWI grows by one unit as per separate HWI indicators describing its specific components. Personified risk assessment involves using a template created for specific HWI components (intellectual, sensory, or emotional loads; work monotony; work regime). The approaches were tested on workers with mostly mental work (n = 137, respondents’ mean age was 43.9 ± 8.01 years; mean work records were 14.5 ± 3.7 years). Calculated data of personified levels of the integral health risk were used to rank likely health outcomes as per their priority. Mental disorders and diseases involving elevated blood pressure were established to correspond to ‘high’ health risk. Myopia, strained headache, atherosclerosis of peripheral vessels, and chronic laryngitis corresponded to ‘medium’ risk. Certain disorders involving the immune mechanism, tinnitus, ischemic heart disease, and atherosclerosis of coronary vessels as well as stomach and duodenum ulcer corresponded to ‘moderate’ risk. Detailed HWI assessment made it possible to identify its leading components; the shares of sensory and emotional loads in the integral health risk reached 29.0 ± 2.4 and 25.9 ± 3.9 % accordingly (р = 0.37). It is advisable to use these findings for creating personified activities aimed at OHR mitigation.

The appraisal of control over work intensity and decisions at the workplace is a well‐established determinant of health and well‐being among employees. Building on job design theories, the overarching aim of this study was to determine office layout as a predictor of perceived job control. Specifically, we investigated between‐group differences in control by contrasting employees in cellular offices with employees in shared/open offices, as well as effects on control among employees transitioning from one office design to another. This is a longitudinal study with three survey points across 48 months comprising 3,415 Norwegian office employees. Data were analyzed with latent growth curve analyses, adjusted for gender, age, leadership responsibility, and teleworking. Employees in cellular offices reported significantly higher control over work intensity and control over decisions when compared with employees in shared/open workspaces. Transitioning from a shared/open workspace to a cellular office led to a significant increase in perceived control regarding work intensity. As the experience of control may buffer the negative impact of job demands, organizations that rely on shared or open office solutions may benefit from identifying tools that can contribute to enhancing their employees' perceived control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Working time reduction (WTR) refers to an increasingly popular group of eco-social policies, with various potential implications for social security and sustainable welfare depending on the details of implementation. Despite the growing number of international examples, WTRs constitute a countertrend in Hungary where the government aims to create a 'work-based society'. In this context, we investigate whether and how companies launch WTRs, and study their effects. Our approach is comparative and explorative. We draw on interviews with managers of 10 companies to understand the motivations behind WTRs. In addition, we use 34 interviews and two focus groups conducted at four companies, considering impacts on employees' workload and working conditions. We show that the drivers, mechanisms and impacts of WTRs differ by company size. There is far more diversity among smaller companies, where the attitudes of managers and personal relationships are decisive. Larger companies either choose low-risk WTRs that offer low gains, or target further growth and potentially cause a reduction of sectoral output while maximising profit. The latter may be the first example of profit-driven degrowth in the literature. Insights generated here can be useful to understand the potential reasons for, and barriers to, a more widespread adoption of WTRs, as well as the role of positive and negative impacts on workers in this process. We argue that this is important not only for social and economic outcomes, but also for the environment, since WTRs are necessary for a precautionary approach to sustainability. We highlight the limitations of current WTRs, in order to catalyse thinking about more radical variants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the paper, we analyze one of the aspects of measuring poverty and social exclusion in the world within the context of the Europe 2030 Strategy, which is represented by very low work intensity. Using the data obtained from the EU-SILC 2021 statistical survey (for Slovakia and the Czech Republic), we apply logistic regression methods and generalized linear models to quantify the impact of relevant categorical factors on the binary dependent variable very low work intensity of Slovak and Czech households. Based on the obtained results, we then process a comparative analysis, through which we quantify the same and also different features of these countries in terms of (quasi-)joblessness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BackgroundFacing the unknown virus, COVID-19 medical staff kept wearing thick personal protective equipment during their work in the early stage of the outbreak. The survey was designed to investigate the physical discomforts, the feeling of the work intensity and the related risk factors of the frontline medical staff during COVID-19 epidemic in the early outbreak.MethodsAn national survey was carried out in China from March 17th 2020 to March 20th 2020 by applying a standardized WeChat questionnaire survey. The doctors or nurses working in the wards for the confirmed COVID-19 patients on front-line were eligible to participate in the survey. Descriptive analysis and multivariate logistic regression analysis were used.ResultsA total number of 515 COVID-19 medical staff, including 190 physicians and 325 nurses participated in this survey. 375 medical staff (72.8%) experienced physical discomforts at work, mostly consist of dyspnea (45.8%), pain (41.0%), chest distress (24.1%), dizziness (18.8%), and weakness (17.5%), while wearing thick isolation clothes at work. The mean onset time and peak time of these symptoms were 2.4 h and 3.5 h after working, respectively. 337 medical staff (65.4%) suffered from sleep disorders. 51 medical staff (10%) were highly worried about being infected by COVID-19 even during their work breaks. 246 medical staffs (47.8%) felt high work intensity and the independent influential factors were the effective daily sleep time and anxiety levels at break time (p = 0.04).ConclusionThe frontline medical staff during COVID-19 epidemic felt different physical discomforts when they wear thick isolation clothes at work in the early outbreak and they felt high work intensity. These precious data will help optimize the work management strategy to ensure the physical and mental health of medical staff in the face of similar outbreaks in future.

Our aim was to examine the associations between work intensity and depressive symptoms among the working population, as well as to identify the impact of physical activity (PA) on these relationships. Spearman correlation analysis was conducted to analyze the correlations among work intensity, PA, and depressive symptoms. Working hours and working days were positively correlated with depressive symptoms (r = 0.108, 0.063; all p values were

The expansion of teleworking and the digital transition movement have given companies and workers great flexibility, albeit with significant organisational consequences. The recent COVID-19 pandemic further reinforced the scale of this impact. Thus, the current research aims to understand whether the multiple dimensions of telework have impacted upon workers’ time management and work intensity through the unprecedented experiences during the pandemic and, in particular, to assess whether telework intensifies work, in what ways and the main reasons for this. The article analyses the literature on teleworking and work intensity and presents a documentary analysis on the subject, in addition to presenting the results of an exploratory study carried out in 2021 in Portugal which investigates the impact of teleworking on workers’ time management. The article underlines that although teleworking can increase a worker’s well-being by eliminating travel time, it presents several risks, namely it can intensify work through increased pressure to meet objectives and targets. Therefore, it is essential to develop research on the effects of telework, particularly assessing the relationship between telework and work intensification, as well as its effects on working conditions and workers’ well-being. This research will be an important resource for regulating labour laws and designing human resource management policies.

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Poverty reduction belongs to the long-term priorities of public policy actions in most countries. In 2010, the European Union and its member states aimed to reduce the number of people living at risk of poverty by 2020. However, most EU countries failed to achieve their targets concerning poverty reduction, partly because of the challenges they had to cope with (slow economic recovery after the crisis, migration, COVID-19). In 2022, poverty risks were increasing in the EU countries once again. Therefore, research focused on determinants of poverty can help policymakers to identify the areas in which policy measures will be useful for poverty reduction or at least its stabilisation in the EU countries. The paper introduces an analysis examining five determinants of poverty (related to employment, incomes, education, and social protection), when poverty was understood in terms of incomes as well as material deprivation. The panel regression analysis was done for cross-sectional data covering EU 26 countries and the period 2010–2019. Statistical results revealed the statistically significant relationships between poverty risks (measured with the use of at-risk-of-poverty rate and rate of material deprivation), and employment, work intensity, and income inequality (representing the determinants of poverty). Findings indicated that particularly the policy measures adopted within the employment and labour market policies must be used in the fight against poverty in EU countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article makes an analytical critique of the position of Basu, Haas, and Moraitis, who, by extending the conventional linear system for the simultaneous determination of value, argue that in Marx's economic theory the intensification of work generates absolute surplus value and is not relative. This position is also contrasted with the original theory of Marx to verify its incompatibility. As an alternative in search of a rectification of the role of labor intensification as a generator of relative surplus value, this work incorporates labor intensity into the Temporal Single System Interpretation (TSSI), showing its full compatibility with Marx's original theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As work intensity continues to become one of the challenging issues at work, the need to understand the consequences and the pathways as well as the boundary conditions, become very important. Drawing on the Job Demand-Resource (JD-R) theory, this study examines how work intensity affects the quality of work life (QWL) through burnout and examines the moderating role of psychological detachment in the relationship between burnout and QWL. Data was collected from 400 frontline workers and supervisors from 30 hotels and analyzed using the Hayes Process Macros and AMOS. The study found that work intensity negatively affects QWL and this relationship was mediated by burnout. Psychological detachment did not moderate the relationship between burnout and QWL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Not only unemployment itself but also the reduced work intensity of a household has a major impact on the social exclusion of a person. The work intensity of households is currently being monitored in Europe mainly for purposes of identifying those people or households that are excluded from the labour market. The households' work intensity directly affects the inclusion or exclusion from the labour market, which is one of the three social exclusion dimensions. Moreover, it also, as confirmed by several studies, fundamentally affects the other two dimensions of social exclusion, namely income poverty and material deprivation. The aim of the paper was to assess which factors in interaction with the economic activity status of a person significantly affect the household's work intensity and, depending on these factors, to estimate the household's work intensity. For this purpose, the general linear model and the associated analysis of marginal means and the contrast analysis were used. The analyses are based on a database EU-SILC 2020 for the Slovak Republic and performed in the SAS Enterprise Guide and by means of PROC GLM in the SAS programming language using CONTRAST and ESTIMATE statements. The article examines between which levels of significant factors there is a significant difference in terms of a household's work intensity and in particular provides estimates of work intensity depending on the household type, educational attainment level and the age of a person. At the same time, in all three cases households are broken down by the economic activity status of the person. The presented analyses revealed categories of persons that are the most and the least threatened by labour market exclusion from the point of view of the considered factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The specificity of the medical profession, which involves constant communication with sufferers and their loved ones; the need to quickly master rapidly developing medical technologies and the digital environment; organizational and economic changes in the healthcare system that are increasingly intensifying the work of medical workers create a risk of expanding the scope and aggravation of the problem of professional burnout. The article presents an analysis of approaches to identifying signs and classifying the stages of professional burnout among medical workers, as well as methods for preventing and relieving this syndrome in domestic and foreign practice. In addition, the results of two mass surveys of medical specialists employed in the Moscow healthcare system, conducted at five-year intervals, are presented.

The 2030 Agenda of the United Nations clearly sets the inclusion of persons with disabilities in the labour market as a main goal. However, especially in care welfare systems characterized by a low level of social services, disability not only impacts the labour market participation of disabled people themselves but may also affect the labour opportunities of other members of their household. Using EU-SILC data to compute individual work intensity-as a better measure of the actual level of labour attainment-this paper aims to disentangle direct and indirect correlations between disability and labour market participation in Italian households. In confirming the negative direct correlation between disability and labour market participation, the results also show a negative indirect correlation that depends on the family relationship between the disabled person and household members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cardiac rehabilitation patients whose work intensity is higher than their exercise tolerance should be provided detailed information and recommendations from medical staff and occupational health professionals to prevent mental health problems upon return to work. Objective: We evaluated work intensity, exercise tolerance, and mental health among workers with heart disease and assessed the relationship between return to work (RTW) status and changes in mental health 3 months post-discharge. Methods: Patients were enrolled from 2014 to 2019. Data were collected on admission and 3 months post-discharge. Mental health was assessed using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. Jobs were defined as "reasonable workload (RW)" or "over workload (OW)" based on metabolic equivalents. Results: Twenty-six patients responded (81.3%). RTW after 3 months was higher in the RW group (100%) than in the OW group (63.6%). Mental health in the OW group significantly deteriorated compared with baseline and was higher than that in the RW group. Conclusions: Patients whose work intensity was higher than their exercise tolerance had worsened mental health 3 months post-discharge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study matches data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) with data on the transformation to industrial artificial intelligence (AI) in cities to explore the effect of this transformation on workers' mental health and its underlying mechanisms in China. The findings show the following (1). The transformation to industrial AI effectively alleviates multiple mental health problems and improves workers' mental health (2). Work intensity and wage income play an intermediary role in the relationship between the industrial AI transformation and workers' mental health (3). Potential endogeneity problems in the relationship between industrial AI and workers' mental health are considered, and robustness tests are conducted (including changing the dependent variables, independent variables and regression models). The main results and impact mechanisms remain robust and reliable. This study extends the research on the relationship between industrial AI and workers' health, which has important theoretical implications. Additionally, based on the Chinese context, this research has important implications for the current AI transformation in developing countries. Transition economies with labor shortages can achieve a win-win situation by promoting industrial AI to fill the labor gap and improve workers' mental health.

This period of mandated remote work has been challenging the Romanian employees to adept to the new paradigm of telework for most of them. While prior to COVID-19 pandemic employees were accustom with the work environment and its variables, they were suddenly replaced. The psychological place for restoration, called home, got invaded and occupied by working life. In this time remote workers were learning to adapt to the new way of working from home and balancing it with everyday life. While employers are searching for new and performing approach to accomplish their goals, employees are addressing new conditions affecting their working performance and personal or family life. The study presents and analyses data of two surveys conducted by the "European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions". The impact and consequences of telework on work-life balance and well-being of workers are discussed, seeing that the working time and work intensity dimensions have a direct influence. The search for sustainable telework requires customized working conditions, adapted skills, tackling emerging risks and involving all stakeholders in Romanian working environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Facing the unknown virus, COVID-19 medical staff kept wearing thick personal protective equipment during their work in the early stage of the outbreak. The survey was designed to investigate the physical discomforts, the feeling of the work intensity and the related risk factors of the frontline medical staff during COVID-19 epidemic in the early outbreak., Methods: An national survey was carried out in China from March 17th 2020 to March 20th 2020 by applying a standardized WeChat questionnaire survey. The doctors or nurses working in the wards for the confirmed COVID-19 patients on front-line were eligible to participate in the survey. Descriptive analysis and multivariate logistic regression analysis were used., Results: A total number of 515 COVID-19 medical staff, including 190 physicians and 325 nurses participated in this survey. 375 medical staff (72.8%) experienced physical discomforts at work, mostly consist of dyspnea (45.8%), pain (41.0%), chest distress (24.1%), dizziness (18.8%), and weakness (17.5%), while wearing thick isolation clothes at work. The mean onset time and peak time of these symptoms were 2.4 h and 3.5 h after working, respectively. 337 medical staff (65.4%) suffered from sleep disorders. 51 medical staff (10%) were highly worried about being infected by COVID-19 even during their work breaks. 246 medical staffs (47.8%) felt high work intensity and the independent influential factors were the effective daily sleep time and anxiety levels at break time ( p  = 0.04)., Conclusion: The frontline medical staff during COVID-19 epidemic felt different physical discomforts when they wear thick isolation clothes at work in the early outbreak and they felt high work intensity. These precious data will help optimize the work management strategy to ensure the physical and mental health of medical staff in the face of similar outbreaks in future., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Jia, Ye, Wang and Wang.)

Our aim was to examine the associations between work intensity and depressive symptoms among the working population, as well as to identify the impact of physical activity (PA) on these relationships. Spearman correlation analysis was conducted to analyze the correlations among work intensity, PA, and depressive symptoms. Working hours and working days were positively correlated with depressive symptoms ( r  = 0.108, 0.063; all p values were <0.001). Regular PA, exercise time, exercise frequency, and exercise years were negatively correlated with depressive symptoms ( r  = -0.121, -0.124, -0.152, -0.149; all p values were <0.001) and working days ( r  = -0.066, -0.050, -0.069, -0.044; all p values were <0.001) , working hours ( r  = -0.113. -0.106, -0.161, -0.123; all p values were <0.001). Working days was positively correlated with working hours ( r  = 0.512, p  < 0.001). Different levels of PA alleviated the effect of working hours or working days on depressive symptoms. Working hours seemed to be more correlated with depressive symptoms than working days. The results suggest that PA at any level could buffer against the effects of work intensity and might prove a helpful strategy for improving mental health issues among employees., Competing Interests: All the authors declare that there is no conflict of interest between of them., (© 2023 The Authors.)

The COVID-19 pandemic gives us the largest telework experiment ever conducted globally, that will most likely leave visible and lasting marks on the organization of the labor market in the future. The purpose of this approach is to investigate the wellbeing from the social and emotional perspective of the individual, considering relevant relational communication, emotional dimension, work intensity, organization, autonomy and work-life balance, customized in the context of teleworking. The information was collected using a semi-structured questionnaire. The wellbeing assessment was performed based on the correlation analysis and the regression analysis. The results of the studies reveal that the existence of adequate communication and work-life balance ensure the wellbeing of telework employees, while the increase in work intensity degrades it. Furthermore, good communication moderates the relationship between organizational skills and wellbeing. The comparative analysis of wellbeing in relation to the explanatory variables considered by including the gender and age perspective reveals the existence of different configurations, with specific signs and statistical meanings.

This study matches data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) with data on the transformation to industrial artificial intelligence (AI) in cities to explore the effect of this transformation on workers' mental health and its underlying mechanisms in China. The findings show the following (1). The transformation to industrial AI effectively alleviates multiple mental health problems and improves workers' mental health (2). Work intensity and wage income play an intermediary role in the relationship between the industrial AI transformation and workers' mental health (3). Potential endogeneity problems in the relationship between industrial AI and workers' mental health are considered, and robustness tests are conducted (including changing the dependent variables, independent variables and regression models). The main results and impact mechanisms remain robust and reliable. This study extends the research on the relationship between industrial AI and workers' health, which has important theoretical implications. Additionally, based on the Chinese context, this research has important implications for the current AI transformation in developing countries. Transition economies with labor shortages can achieve a win-win situation by promoting industrial AI to fill the labor gap and improve workers' mental health., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Yang, Liu, Gai and He.)