Purpose: Learning at work generalises through socialisation into behaviours away from the workplace. The aim of this study is to give empirical evidence of a positive relationship between job design, self-efficacy, competence efficacy and personal initiative at work, and proactive job search while under notice of redundancy and in unemployment. Design/methodology/approach: The results are based on a detailed work task analysis and self-reported data by individuals who had been made redundant (n = 176). Findings: The paper finds that the theoretical model received substantial, but not full support. Job design has impact on personal initiative through self-efficacy and competence-efficacy as mediating variables between job design and personal initiative. Personal initiative at work affects proactive job search when facing unemployment. Research limitations/implications: A limitation is that the respondents in general had jobs that were low-skilled and routine. It is likely that a research group with larger differences in job design would show stronger relations between job design and personal initiative. Practical implications: Work task analysis identifies conditions at work that minimise and mitigate individual initiative and makes it possible to correct them in order both to enhance organisational effectiveness and the individuals' long-term employability. Originality/value: The paper proposes that autonomy and complexity, which are the aspects most predominant in the study of how job design affects personal initiative and self-efficacy, are too limited. The sequential completeness provides a broader or narrower scope of work tasks and more or less feed back which is crucial for learning and mastery-experiences. Demand on cooperation, demand on responsibility, cognitive demand and learning opportunities affect initiative-taking as well.