The effect of job satisfaction regulating workload on miners’ unsafe state

Miners’ unsafe behavior is the main cause of accidents in coal mines, and unsafe state have an important influence on unsafe behavior among miners. To minimize accidents from the source of accident chain, we evaluated the impact of workload on miners’ unsafe state. It is important for coal enterprises to monitor miners’ unsafe state and to prevent unsafe accidents. Workload is divided into two dimensions: work time and work demand. Meanwhile, we introduced job satisfaction as a moderating variable. Through empirical research methods, first-line employees from two coal mines in China were enrolled in the questionnaire survey. Regression analysis was used to verify the impact of workload and its various dimensions, job satisfaction, and miners’ unsafe state. We found that workload, work time and work demand have significant positive effects on miners’ unsafe state. Job satisfaction plays a moderating effect in the relationship between workload and miners’ unsafe state. To some extent, a higher job satisfaction was associated with reduced workload, reduced occurrence of miners’ unsafe state and minimal incidences of unsafe accidents. On this basis, measures were proposed to improve miners’ unsafe state in terms of workload and job satisfaction. This study informs the establishment of effective intervention measures to monitor miners’ unsafe state and is also beneficial to the improvement of coal mine safety.