Private sector employment growth, 1998-2004: a panel analysis of British workplaces

Private sector employment rose by over a million in the past three years. Commentators often interpret this number – which is a net figure – as ‘job creation’. But how many jobs really are created each year, and conversely how many are lost? How has this changed with the downturn and what does it imply for the recovery?This article uses findings from business and workplace-level data to map i) job creation and destruction over recent years, ii) its components in accounting terms, iii) the relative contribution by firms of different size and age, and iv) the reallocation of resource between firms and to workplaces within firms. There are four main points: a)Job churn far outweighs net change. Before the downturn, an average of 4.0 million jobs were created each year and a slightly smaller number lost (3.7m), resulting in a net increase of about 300,000 per year.b)Most job creation (over 70 per cent) is within existing firms; but within that, over a third comes from the creation of new workplaces set up within those firms.c)The net reduction in jobs in 2008–11 was not, in contrast to earlier recessions, due to higher rates of job loss; instead it reflects a sustained period of lower job creation in new workplaces, especially in SMEs (figure 1). This is consistent with ongoing credit constraints hitting SMEs particularly hard, as discussed in Armstrong et al. (2013), or could simply be in line with lack of confidence to invest at this time.d)Looking at the years 2008–11 individually, the downturn begins with reduced levels of entry, followed by a peak of job destruction in 2009 in line with reduced aggregate demand, and then a continuation of low levels of entry of new SMEs, and lower levels of destruction too (figure 2).

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“…8Bryson and Nurmi (2011) is an exception, though it used the Workplace Employment Relations Survey rather than administrative data here.…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Dynamic is the Private Sector? Job Creation and Insights from Workplace-Level Data

Butcher

Bursnall²

2013

Natl. Inst. econ. rev.

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“…We compute employment growth rates according to Davis and Haltiwanger () as the difference in the number of employees x in a plant j between year t and year t −1, divided by the average number of employees in both years:

j g r_{jt} = \frac{x_{jt} - x_{j t - 1}}{(x_{jt} + x_{j t - 1}) / 2}

Compared to conventional non‐standardised growth rates, this measure has the advantage of being approximately normally distributed and bounded by 2 (‐2) from above (below) . Some of the (newer) studies from the union employment growth literature have already used this measure, for example, Bryson and Nurmi (), Bryson (), Wooden and Hawke (), Walsworth ().…”

Section: Empirical Procedure Data and Descriptive Statisticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a consequence, measuring employment growth on a panel of surviving plants may bias upwards the estimated coefficients (Blanchflower et al ., , Bryson, ). Therefore, we follow an approach used by Bryson and Nurmi () to model sample selection, controlling for plant survival using a two‐step Heckman selection model…”

Section: The One Constant In Germanymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(), Blanchflower and Burgess (), Booth and McCulloch (), Addison et al . (), Bryson (), Addison and Belfield () and Bryson and Nurmi ().…”

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confidence: 99%

“… The union employment literature employs various measures of union strength, depending on the institutional setting in the country and the data sets available. The most common measures are union density (the share of union members among all employees) (Blanchflower et al ., , Machin and Wadhwani, , Bronars et al ., , Dunne and MacPherson, , Addison et al ., , Wooden and Hawke, , Krol and Svorny, , Bryson and Dale‐Olsen, ) or union recognition for collective bargaining (Blanchflower et al ., , Machin and Wadhwani, , Leonard, , Blanchflower and Burgess, , Booth and McCulloch, , Addison and Belfield, , Bryson, , Bryson and Dale‐Olsen, , Bryson and Nurmi, ), while other authors use variations of these measures. …”

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confidence: 99%

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The one constant: a causal effect of collective bargaining on employment growth? Evidence from German linked‐employer‐employee data

Brändle

Goerke

2018

Scottish J Political Eco

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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. Using various approaches, however, we cannot establish a causal interpretation of the effects, suggesting that the cross-section results are driven by selection. Terms of use: Documents in

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How Did Workplaces Respond to Recession?

Amossé

Bryson²,

Petit

2016

Comparative Workplace Employment Relations

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Private sector employment growth, 1998-2004: a panel analysis of British workplaces

Cited by 6 publications

References 34 publications

How Dynamic is the Private Sector? Job Creation and Insights from Workplace-Level Data

How Dynamic is the Private Sector? Job Creation and Insights from Workplace-Level Data

The one constant: a causal effect of collective bargaining on employment growth? Evidence from German linked‐employer‐employee data

How Did Workplaces Respond to Recession?

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