Despite the increasing dependence on virtual assistants by industries worldwide and in the Philippines, there is no empirical research that explores the interaction between HRM practices, job autonomy, work-life balance, and economic stability. While HRM theories have been widely researched in conventional office-based work, whether these are applicable to remote working contexts remains questionable. The current research addresses these gaps by examining how HRM strategies can influence economic stability of virtual assistants, where job autonomy act as mediating variable and work-life balance as moderating variable. The linkage among variables gives a full picture of the direct and indirect effect of HRM interventions on the financial well-being using the motivation, autonomy and work-life balance. Quantitative research design was used, with 146 active virtual assistants selected using snowball sampling. HRM strategies, work autonomy, work-life balance, and economic stability were assessed using standardized scales. The spearman’s (ρ) rho was calculated to be 0.696 with p-value <. 001 representing a positive correlation between HRM strategies and economic stability. Indirect and direct effects were determined through mediation and moderation analysis. The job autonomy indirect effect (a × b = 0.0882, p = 0.024) accounts for 9.11% of the total effect which implies a partial mediation suggesting that autonomy is a contributor to a smaller extent than the predominant role of HRM strategies in the economic stability of virtual assistants. The interaction term accounts for Estimate = 0.038, p = 0.806 shows that WLB does not significantly moderate the relationship between HRM strategies and economic stability indicating that WLB should be regarded as independent predictor and contextual variable rather than a moderator. The results underscore the importance of HR policies that enhance autonomy, promote equitable and supportive HRM systems, and support work-life balance as the direct factor of well-being and stability in virtual assistants.

Keywords: Human Resource Management (HRM), economic stability, virtual assistants, job autonomy, worklife balance, mediating role, moderating effect, HRM strategies