Bangladesh is the second largest exporter of garments in the world and garments industry is a major employer in Bangladesh. But garments workers faced many problems like low salary, heavy workload, compulsory overtime, job insecurity etc. This was a cross sectional study conducted to determine the job anxiety among the garments workers from January to December 2017. By Convenience sampling method total 138 samples were interviewed at residence of garments workers near Chittagong Export Processing Zone (CEPZ). Data were collected by obtaining informed written consent of the garments workers by face to face interview using a semi structured questionnaire and Job Anxiety Scale (JAS).  It was found that most of the respondents (71.74 %) were female. The age of the respondents was between 18-50 years and the average age was 27.75 (±8.030) years. Maximum (63.8%) respondents were married. Majority (64.1%) of the male and 42.4% of the female respondents had education level secondary. The average monthly income was Tk. 8800 (±5611.53). All the respondents were working as permanent employee in their present work place, half of the respondents (50.7%) were working as Machine Operator and average working hours in a day was 8.24 (±0.65) hours. Most of them (89.9%) had to work overtime and average duration of overtime per day was 2.56 (±1.054) hours. It was found that all of the respondents were suffering from job anxiety either it was low or high.  Majority (73.2%) of the respondents had low level of job anxiety. All of them had job related worries and worries about the job security and future. Job anxiety was more common in 31 years age or more. Both high (73%) and low (71.3%) job anxiety was common among female workers.

Keywords: Level of Job Anxiety, Garments Workers, Export Processing Zone (CEPZ), Job anxiety and their Associated Factors.

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Dr Irin Hossain

National Institute of Preventive and Social Medicine (NIPSOM), Mohakhali, Dhaka