CAUSES AND MEDIATING EFFECT OF JOB SATISFACTION AND ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT ON ABSENTEEISM AND LABOUR TURNOVER IN THE SRI LANKAN EXPORT APPAREL MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY

Absenteeism and labour turnover are the two major problems that the highly labour intensive export oriented apparel industry faces today. Reduction in absenteeism and turnover plays a vital role to do industry, to survive in the highly competitive world apparel-market, under a quota free situation. The key objective of this study is to investigate the most influential causes of absenteeism and turnover of sewing machine operators and supervisors in the export apparel industry. In doing so, the study investigated the mediation effect of job satisfaction and commitment on absenteeism and turnover. Further study investigated how absenteeism and turnover of the sewing machine operators and supervisors vary according to the ownership of the organization. An examination of samples of 418 machine operators, 196 supervisory level employees, 20 managers revealed that there are influences on absenteeism and turnover from most causes considered in this study. Further, the study identified that there was no significant difference between job satisfaction/ organizational commitment, absenteeism/ turnover and causes of different ownership organizations. Key Words:   Absenteeism, Turnover, Ownership, Sewing machine operators, Mediation effectFor full paper: fmscresearch@sjp.ac.lk