Quality, stable and sustainable employment: a bibliometric analysis of global research trends (2020–2024)

In the context of accelerating digital transformation, environmental transition, and postpandemic recovery, employment research is increasingly shifting its focus from quantitative indicators to qualitative, stable, and sustainable aspects of work. The purpose of this study is to conduct a bibliometric analysis of publications devoted to issues of quality, stable, and sustainable employment using the Web of Science database for the period 2020–2024. The bibliometric network visualization was carried out using VOSviewer software, which enabled the identification of clusters of interrelated keywords. Two groups of keywords were applied for metadata selection. The first group included general terms related to employment: “employment,” “job,” “work,” “occupation,” “labour”. The second group consists of the terms “technological change”, “decent employment”, “commitment”, and “job satisfaction”. Cluster analysis helps to identify four main thematic groups reflecting the key areas of scientific research in this area. The results showed that the current research agenda is structured around clusters related to employee satisfaction, technological and globalization challenges, decent work and inequality, and education, gender, and employment quality. Key directions in employment research, as well as their structural interrelations, have been identified. Digitalization and the green transition influence the evolution of scientific approaches to decent, stable, and high-quality employment. The results of the study can be applied in policy-making and analytical research.

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