In-person Archive - IAB - Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung

The Ins and Outs of Vacancies

The study documents the cyclicality of vacancy flows and their contribution to variation in the vacancy stock with data from Austria.

This paper uses large-scale high-frequency data on vacancy flows and matched employer-employee data from Austria to document the cyclicality of vacancy flows and their contribution to variation in the vacancy stock.

We document four key facts: (1) Vacancy inflows explain at least one-third of the cyclical variation in the vacancy stock, whereas the remainder is explained by vacancy fillings; (2) vacancy lapses, while accounting for about 20% of vacancy outflows, are acyclical and do not contribute to variation in the stock; (3) replacement vacancies, i.e. vacancies posted following a quit of a worker to another firm, are a key driver of vacancy inflows over the business cycle; and (4) the composition of vacancy inflows varies little over the business cycle and cannot account for the cyclical variation in vacancy filling. We set up a search-and-matching model with fixed costs of vacancy posting and on-the-job search, and calibrate it to match the averages of vacancy flows.

The calibrated model highlights the crucial role of on-the-job search – particularly replacement hires – in explaining the observed importance of vacancy inflows for cyclical fluctuations in the vacancy rate.

Family Policy, Careers and Workplace Technology

This workshop aims to advance research on labor market outcomes, family policy, and career development, drawing on rich register data from Germany and Norway.

This workshop aims to advance research on labor market outcomes, family policy, and career development, drawing on rich register data from Germany and Norway. Key themes include how workplace structures, public policy, and firm behavior influence career trajectories, economic mobility, and workforce well-being. Contributions may address, but are not limited to, the following topics:

Careers, promotions, wages and compensation, human capital
Family, social, and tax policies (e.g., childcare, parental leave, affirmative action, mentor programs)
Innovations and technology in the workplace
Firm organization, management practices, and corporate outcomes
Flexible work arrangements and work environment
Gender inequality and intersectional perspectives within labor markets

In cooperation with Norwegian School of Economics and Statistics Norway.

17th interdisciplinary PhD-Workshop – Perspectives On (Un-)Employment

The workshop provides an opportunity for graduate students to present their ongoing work in the field of theoretical and empirical labor market research.

The IAB’s Graduate School (GradAB) and the FAU invites young researchers to its 17th interdisciplinary Ph.D. workshop “Perspectives on (Un-)Employment”. The workshop provides an opportunity for graduate students to present their ongoing work in the field of theoretical and empirical labor market research and receive feedback from leading scholars in the discipline. The workshop will focus on but not be limited to empirical research in the following fields:

Inequality, poverty, and intergenerational mobility
Labor supply, labor demand, and unemployment
Gender, family, and discrimination
Evaluation of labor market institutions and policies
Health, labor market integration, and job security
Globalization, international trade and labor markets
Education, qualification, and job tasks
Wage determination and life-cycle earnings
Migration and international labor markets
Establishments and the workplace
Regional labor markets and spatial disparities
Technological change and digitalization
The impact of climate change on the labor market

We welcome papers that apply quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods.

Identifying Worker and Firm Quality (2nd Edition)

This worksphop is about using Linked employer-employee data to study worker and firm heterogeneity in wages as well as the importance of labour market sorting.

Linked employer-employee data offer a wide range of possibilities for researchers. For example, this type of data is used to understand the role of worker and firm quality in the development of wage inequality, as for example in Card, Heining, Kline (2013). A widely used approach to identify worker and firm quality was developed by Abowd, Kramarz and Margolis (1999).

Since then, many researchers have used the AKM model to study worker and firm heterogeneity in wages, as well as the importance of labour market sorting. While the model continues to be heavily used until today, recent developments discuss potential biases and propose corrections (for example Abowd et al, 2004; Andrews et al, 2008, 2012; Kline, Saggio, Sølvsten 2020; Bonhomme et al, 2023). As with the first edition of the workshop that took place in 2023, the purpose of the second edition continues to be to bring together researchers working on or interested in topics related to worker and firm quality to discuss current work.

2nd Workshop on Urban Labor Markets and Local Income Inequality

The workshop brings together junior and senior researchers working on issues about Urban Labor Markets and Local Income Inequality.

Urban labor markets provide agglomeration advantages to workers and firms. However, the distributional consequences are not fully understood. Agglomeration benefits are unevenly shared among low- and high-skilled workers. At the same time, many large urban labor markets around the world have experienced strongly rising housing costs in recent decades, especially for renters and young first-time homebuyers, putting these groups at risk of being priced out of the local labor market. The workshop aims to bring together junior and senior researchers working on these and related issues and welcomes both empirical and theoretical contributions. The list of topic includes, but is not limited to

Distributional consequences of agglomeration benefits
Labor market outcomes and housing affordability
Highly-local income inequality
Spatial extent of local labor markets and commuting patterns
Neighborhood effects and segregation
Interactions between local housing and labor markets

Jobs, Skills, and Productivity in Structural Transformations

This conference marks the third international conference of the ELMI Network (Network of European Labour Market Research Institutes).

Organised by the Institute for Structural Research (IBS), Institute for Employment Research (IAB), and Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER), the international scientific conference Jobs, Skills, and Productivity in Structural Transformations aims to bring together leading scholars in the social sciences to address the challenges of the employability, skill mismatches and skill upgrading, social cohesion, and public policy responses to industrial and structural transitions.

The conference marks the third international conference of the ELMI Network (Network of European Labour Market Research Institutes), composed of 11 research institutes to facilitate the international exchange of best practices, ideas and people (www.elmi-network.eu). It promotes multi-disciplinary European research collaborations, and the exchange of best practices in data management, data access, and discussions with policy-makers and stakeholders.

We are particularly interested in papers that address the following issues:

Labour market consequences and long-term career trajectories of workers affected by deindustralisation and large structural shifts
The impact of green and digital transitions on skill demand and skill mismatches
Labour market consequences of military rearmament
Regional disparities in labour market adaptation to structural change
The role of education systems in preparing workers for structural transitions
The effectiveness of active labour market policies (ALMPs) in addressing structural transformations

Evaluation of Passive and Active Labour Market Policies

The workshop accepts empirical contributions that assess the design, implementation and impact of labour market policies.

The research department Basic Income Support and Activation and the working group Social Protection in Changing Times at the IAB invite interested researchers to submit their extended abstracts or full papers to the 7th workshop ‘Evaluation of Passive and Active Labour Market Policies’.
The workshop provides an opportunity for researchers working on related subjects to present their
research, receive constructive feedback and meet other scholars in the field.

The workshop accepts empirical contributions that assess the design, implementation and impact
of passive and active labour market policies. Examples include:

Effects of passive and active labour market policies on labour market outcomes and wellbeing
Impact of automation and use of artificial intelligence within public employment services
Research on street-level bureaucracies, the behaviour of caseworkers and the role of public employment services
Econometric and statistical methods for the evaluation of passive and active labour market policies

Institutions and Frictions in the Labor Market

The workshop will feature empirically-oriented research examining factors that impede the smooth functioning of labor markets and policy interventions.

The workshop will feature empirically-oriented research examining factors that impede the smooth functioning of labor markets and/or policy interventions that correct for or exacerbate these frictions. Specifically, the objective of the workshop is to discuss recent developments in the following research areas:

Job Search, Recruitment, Matching
Imperfect Competition in the Labor Market
Labor Shortages
Information Deficiencies in the Labor Market
Collective Bargaining, Unions, Codetermination
Minimum Wages
Employment Protection Legislation
Anti-Discrimination Legislation
Other Labor Market Frictions or Labor Market Institutions

Wartime migration and integration: Ukrainian stayers, IDPs and refugees

The workshop aims to bring together social scientists to discuss the most recent findings related to migration and integration.

Since February 2022 millions of people from Ukraine were forced to flee their homes to seek protection in less waraffected regions of the country and abroad, others have stayed under the war-related risks. Europe experienced the largest influx of refugees since the second world war.

Unlike labor migrants, refugees have no time to prepare for migration and, thus, face particular challenges in their host countries including limited knowledge of the local institutions, a lack of language skills and social networks as well as traumatic experiences that may have long-lasting effects on people’s lives. At the same time, the socioeconomic circumstances of the men and women who remained in Ukraine changed drastically, affecting their employment, their families and other areas of life.

The workshop aims to bring together social scientists to discuss the most recent findings related to migration and integration, labor market and family outcomes of Ukrainian refugees, stayers and IDPs and encourages contributions
on the following topics:

selection of refugees, decision to stay, emigrate and return
family and labor market dynamics in Ukraine
refugee socioeconomic integration
health, social networks, and social inequality
gender, paid and unpaid work
refugee uncertainty and its outcomes
ethnic discrimination of refugees
human capital investment and skills transfer of refugees
effects on home and host countries’ economy and population

The Economic Impacts of AI on Work and Labor Markets

This conference is to discuss the economic impacts of frontier technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and green technologies.

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI), green technologies, and other frontier technologies are reshaping economies, workplaces, and environmental outcomes globally. This ongoing transformation presents both opportunities and challenges at macroeconomic, organizational, and individual levels, influencing productivity, employment structures, economic growth, and sustainability. Institutions and policies play pivotal roles in unfolding these impacts, including efforts to accelerate the greening of the economy and to adapt to new technologies across various economic sectors.

The TASKS VII conference brings together economists, sociologists, and policymakers to discuss the economic impacts of frontier technologies, focusing on productivity, institutions, and micro-level and macro-level adjustments.