Separations at the Firm Level (original) (raw)

Occupational Mobility over the Business Cycle

Purpose – The main purpose of this paper is to examine how occupational mobility varies over the business cycle and how selected factors contribute to occupational mobility in different stages of the business cycle. Design/methodology/approach – Using annual micro data from the Estonian Labour Force Survey (2001-2010) and implementing probit models with interaction terms, the paper investigates occupational mobility as a change of occupation in two successive years during recovery, boom and recession periods. Findings – The analysis indicates that occupational mobility is higher during the recovery and boom periods and lower during the recession stage. The demographic characteristics (gender, marital status, knowledge of local language) influence the probability for occupational change during the recovery stage of the business cycle. The position of employees in the occupational hierarchy is significant during the recovery and boom periods. Employees working in the public sector have a lower probability for occupational change compared with private sector employees during the recession. Training has a positive effect on occupational mobility during recession. Tenure reduces the probability of occupational mobility over the whole business cycle. Originality/value – The paper contributes to the literature by providing new results about the role of different factors of occupational mobility over the business cycle. This is among the few studies addressing the variation in the occupational mobility of employees from the public and private sectors. Interactions between the position of the employees in the occupational hierarchy and the ownership form of their employers and the economic sectors add to the understanding about the mechanism of occupational mobility over the business cycle stages.

Job Competition, Crowding Out, and Unemployment Fluctuations

Macroeconomic Dynamics, 2010

This paper attempts to determine the factors generating the persistence of unemployment over the business cycle. The observations show that the total unemployment rate is highly persistent, and that the persistence of the unemployment rate of unskilled workers is higher than that of skilled workers. To account for these observations, the paper develops a framework that features search frictions. Individuals are either high educated or low educated, and firms post two types of vacancies: the complex, which can be matched with the high educated, and the simple, which can be matched with the high and the low educated. On-the-job search for a complex occupation is undertaken by the high educated in simple occupations. A negative aggregate technological shock induces the high educated unemployed to compete with the low educated by increasing their search intensity for simple vacancies. As the high educated occupy simple vacancies, they crowd out the low educated into unemployment. This d...

8 ISE R W orking Paper Series Returns to Job Mobility: The Role of Observed and Unobserved Factors

2009

Non-technical summary Earnings pro les of individuals depend not only on the characteristics of workers and their employers, which may be both observable and unobservable, but also on the quality of the match between the two. The quality of the match is determined when the worker enters the rm and while successful matches are likely to continue, unsuccessful ones are likely to result in separations of workers from the rm. Both good and bad matches are at risk of job mobility. Good matches may lead to internal mobility (promotions) while bad matches lead to permanent separations from rms. Typically, analyses of the impact of job mobility on wages focus either on moves within a rm, or between rms, making it di ¢ cult to compare changes in wages associated with each type. Furthermore, although much of the di¤erences in wages are not explained by what we can observe, the nature of most data sets does not allow us to identify the e¤ect of unmeasured factors relating to the worker, the...