Multiple Job Holding, Local Labor Markets, and the Business Cycle

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may AbstractAbout 5 % of US workers hold multiple jobs, which can exacerbate or mitigate employment changes over the business cycle. Theory is ambiguous and prior literature is not fully conclusive. We examine the relationship between multiple job holding and local unemployment rates using a large Current Population Survey data set of workers in urban labor markets during 1998-2013. Labor markets with high unemployment have moderately lower rates of multiple job holding. Yet no relationship between multiple job holding and unemployment is found within markets over time, with near-zero estimates being precisely estimated. Multiple job holding is largely acyclic. JEL Classification: J21

Multiple job-holding: Career pathway or dire straits?

“…However, recent studies show that MJH is either procyclical, specifically among females-or largely unrelated to economic conditions, especially when accounting for variation in MJH within local labor markets and over time [5]. Figure 2, for instance, depicts the time series of MJH and unemployment rates from 2002 to 2015 for the entire EU28 and for two specific countries, Greece and Denmark.…”

The Puzzling Fixity of Multiple Job Holding Across Regions and Labor Markets

“…The geographic fixity of state multiple job holding over time is readily evident if one compares across years BLS annual reports on multiple job holding (e.g., U.S. BLS 2015). 2 Hirsch et al (2015) make this point. They find a multiple job holding rate for salaried workers that is about half a percentage point lower than for hourly workers.…”

“…Hipple (2010) provides extensive descriptive evidence (means) on multiple job holding rates for various groups of workers using the CPS. Hirsch et al (2015) do likewise (Table 3), while also providing estimates of conditional effects on multiple job holding for a rich set of worker, job, and location attributes (Hirsch et al 2015, Appendix 3 These longitudinal data sets enable researchers to examine worker transitions into and out of multiple job holding over time and provide a rich set of covariates. Because of its large size and geographic coverage, the CPS is better suited to examine multiple job holding patterns across labor markets than these alternative data sets.…”

“…The secular downward trend cannot be accounted for by macroeconomic conditions. Multiple job holding is weakly cyclical, but the relationship is close enough to zero to characterize it as acyclic (Hirsch et al 2015).…”

Rotation group bias in measures of multiple job holding

“…For MIS 2-4 and 6-8, most surveys are conducted over the phone rather than in person. 2 For references to the larger literature on multiple job holding, see Lalé (2015) and Hirsch, Husain, and Winters (2016). 3 The unemployment rate is of course a more important measure of economic performance than is the MJH rate.…”