Job satisfaction among healthcare workers in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic

Using a unique survey of more than 7,000 respondents conducted immediately after the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, we investigate potential drivers of the job satisfaction of healthcare workers. Relying on a representative sample of Italian physicians and nurses, we show that, in addition to personal characteristics (e.g., age, gender, health status), contextual factors (i.e., working conditions) play the leading role in explaining variation in the level of satisfaction (58%). In particular, working in a high-quality facility increases worker satisfaction and willingness to remain in the profession, and in the current medical specialization, while working in a province with a perceived shortage of medical personnel yields the opposite result. Direct experience with COVID-19 (e.g., having tested positive) is not significantly correlated with the level of job satisfaction, which is instead significantly reduced by changes in the working conditions caused by the health emergency.