Emotional Labor Among the Service Sector Employees: Evolution of Job Satisfaction with Employee Demographics

The emotional labor, through which workers control their emotions to conform to organizational norms, significantly influences how satisfied workers are with their jobs. This paper focuses on examining the relationship between emotional labor and job satisfaction and the moderating effect of demographics among service industry employees from different service sectors: healthcare, banking, public utility, secondary education, and higher education. A survey-based quantitative research approach was adopted, and the sample was selected using a stratified sampling technique. The collected sample consisted of 408 responses, and Structural equation modeling was carried out to test the statistical significance of the proposed relationship. Process Macro statistical testing was followed to measure the moderating effects of employee demographics. The results show that emotional labor has a significant positive impact on job satisfaction. Additionally, the findings suggest that the association between emotional labor and job satisfaction is moderated by employee marital status and age. The results add to the body of research on emotional labor's effects on employee well-being and organizational effectiveness.