The Impact of Perceived Organizational Justice and Organizational Trust on Unemployment Anxiety: Empirical Evidence from Chinese Employees

As China deepens its supply-side structural reforms, the role of employees has become increasingly vital. Organizations, composed of individuals working collaboratively toward shared goals, rely fundamentally on their workforce. This study focuses on the retention dimension within the employee lifecycle—recruitment, utilization, development, and retention—using equity theory as the analytical framework to explore contemporary employee psychology. Drawing on data from the 2017 Chinese Social Survey (CSS), the study examines the influence of perceived organizational justice on unemployment anxiety and the mediating role of organizational trust. Results indicate that perceived organizational justice significantly and negatively predicts unemployment anxiety. Organizational trust partially mediates this relationship in a negative direction. Furthermore, both age and educational attainment negatively predict unemployment anxiety, while gender shows no significant effect.