In search of turbulence Labour market mobility and job stability in Germany

Abstract

2 AbstractIn the transition from an industrial society to a service society, particularly changes on the labour market are likely to occur. A number of authors assert that these changes will result in an increasing external-numerical flexibility, which is assumed to affect labour market processes in terms of a generally higher labour market mobility and a decreasing employment stability ('high-velocity-labourmarket').This paper examines the hypothesis of a growing importance of numeric-external flexibility, applying simple descriptive statistical methods to the event-history data of the IAB Employment Subsample for the West German labour market in the years 1976 to 1995. There is no evidence for an accelerating labour market dynamic, but rather for a stagnating or even slightly declining labour market mobility since the 1970s. Furthermore, the job stability does not decrease over time, as one might have expected, but increases.Although the general results show no increasing fluctuation and instability, it is conceivable that service-sector jobs have become more unstable but that this increased instability is cancelled out by a considerable stabilisation of employment relationships in manufacturing. However, in the end of the paper it turns out that there is no evidence for such contrasting developments in the 'old' and 'new' labour markets.

Occupational Mobility and Developments of Inequality Along the Life Course

“…Workers have experienced growing uncertainty, reflected in delayed labour market entry and increasing employment risks (Kurz et al 2006). However, job stability has not declined dramatically (Erlinghagen and Knuth 2004). While wage inequality was relatively stable in post-war decades, one can see an increasing polarisation of the income distribution over the recent years, which has been subject of controversy in recent political debate (Giesecke and Verwiebe 2009).…”

Perceptions of Job Security in Europe’s Ageing Workforce

“…This is likely to increase particularly older workers fear of loosing their job in today's globalised new economy (e.g., Sweet, 2007; also see Fullerton & Wallace, 2007), because their opportunities to compensate financial losses resulting from unemployment, such as reduced retirement benefits, through future employment are very limited. Although some studies suggest that workers' actual job stability may have declined less over the course of the last two or three decades of the 20 th century than some might have expected (e.g., Doogan, 2001;Erlinghagen & Knuth, 2004 also see Fevre, 2007), older workers may still be psychologically and socially less equipped than their younger counterparts to cope with the perceived hazards of job loss, being raised in a different generational context. Thus, in addition to particular concerns about their economic well-being during old age, older workers may also suffer more from adverse effects of job insecurity on other outcomes related to individuals' quality of life, such as health (e.g., Ferrie, 2001) or family functioning (e.g., Larson et al, 1994).…”

Early exit from the labour force between exclusion and privilege: Unemployment as a transition from employment to retirement in West Germany

“…The growth in unemployment volume is primarily due to increasing proportions of the workforce who experience only unemployment and no employment during the respective year (Erlinghagen and Knuth 2001). This concentration of unemployment can also be expressed as a distribution of unemployment volume over percentiles of unemployment spell duration: in 1996, the 10 per cent of unemployment spells with the highest duration accounted for almost half (46.7 per cent) of the unemployment volume (Karr 1999).…”