Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung

European labour market dynamics after the outbreak of the Covid-19 crisis

In the Covid-19 crisis, governments around the world are struggling to secure jobs and businesses. Short-time work and comprehensive liquidity support benefit companies, which have so far relied more on these measures than on layoffs. However, the uncertain economic outlook deters many firms from hiring new staff. Also, the number of potential workers is declining throughout Europe, as many are withdrawing from the labour market. In order to analyse the mechanisms behind these dropping employment figures, this article gives an outline of developments in labour market flow statistics in Europe after the outbreak of the Covid-19 crisis.

The full article can be found in our Magazine IAB-Forum

Click the following link for more articles in the series “COVID-19 Crisis: Consequences for the Labour Market"

Central Exams and Adult Skills: Evidence from PIAAC

Central exams are often hypothesized to favorably affect incentive structures in schools. Indeed, previous research provides vast evidence on the positive effects of central exams on student test scores. But critics warn that these effects may arise through the strategic behavior of students and teachers, which may not affect human capital accumulation in the long run. Exploiting variation in examination types across school systems and over time, we provide the first evidence that central exams positively affect adult skills. However, our estimates are small compared to the existing estimates for students, which may indicate some fade-out in the effect on skills over time.

IAB-Discussion Paper 6/2021

Temporary overpessimism: Job loss expectations following a large negative employment shock

Job loss expectations were widespread among workers in East Germany after reunification with West Germany. Though experiencing a large negative employment shock, East German workers were still overpessimistic immediately after reunification with respect to their job risk. Over time, job loss expectations fell and converged to West German levels, which was driven by a stabilizing economic environment and by an adaptation of the interpretation of economic signals with workers learning to distinguish individual risk from firm level risk.

IAB-Discussion Paper 5/2021

Gender Differences in Reduced Well-being during the COVID-19 Pandemic – the Role of Working Conditions

The COVID-19 pandemic has had very different impacts on the employment and family work conditions of men and women. Thus, it might have jeopardised the slow and hard-won reduction of gender inequalities in the division of labour achieved in recent decades. Using data from the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) and its supplementary COVID-19 web survey for Germany, we investigate the relationship between working conditions and gender differences in subjective well-being during the first months of the pandemic. Therefore, we systematically consider the household context by distinguishing between adults with and without young children. The results from multivariate regression models accounting for pre-corona satisfaction reveal a decline in all respondents’ life satisfaction, particularly among women and mothers with young children. However, the greater reduction in women’s well-being cannot be linked to systematic differences in working conditions throughout the pandemic. 

IAB-Discussion Paper 4/2021

European Labour Market Barometer: No longer in the negative for the first time since the start of the crisis

In March, the European Labour Market Barometer rose by 1.3 points to 100.6 points compared to the previous month. Therefore, the leading indicator of the European Network of Public Employment Services and the IAB has risen above the 100-point mark for the first time since the start of the crisis and does not signal any downturn in the European labour market over the next few months.

Press release

European Labour Market Barometer

The effects of private versus public health insurance on health and labor market outcomes

Among health care systems with both public and private elements (such as in the US and Germany), an important question is whether the type of health insurance exerts an impact on workers’ careers. We exploit the unique German case of a two-tier health care system to analyze whether opting out of public statutory health insurance and into private health insurance affects the specific health and employment outcomes of employed workers over a period of nine years. We exploit administrative registers and apply a fuzzy regression discontinuity design. We do not find any evidence that the type of health insurance affects employed workers’ outcomes in the medium or long run. This suggests that even though private health insurance entails more comfortable healthcare conditions, public health insurance does not come with heavy health impairments or detrimental employment outcomes.

IAB-Discussion Paper 3/2021

"Acceptance of social and labor market programs and regulations": Methodological report on the second survey

The project “Acceptance of social and labor market programs and regulations” asks citizens about their assessment of specific design alternatives for social and labor market policies in Germany. This report describes the design and the field organization of the second online survey conducted by the project. Furthermore, it presents a selectivity analysis of contact and participation probabilities as well as for consent to merge the survey data with administrative data.

IAB-Forschungsbericht 4/2021

European Labour Market Barometer: Hope for an end to the downturn in Europe

Compared to the previous month, the European Labour Market Barometer rose by 1.1 points in February. Standing at 99.3 points, the leading indicator of the European Network of Public Employment Services and the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) thus no longer suggests a significant downturn of the European labour market in the coming months.

Press release

European Labour Market Barometer

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic: evidence from a new establishment survey

The Covid-19 pandemic has so far had a sizeable impact on the German economy: gross national product fell by 5.3 percentage points in 2020 and by December, the number of unemployed had risen by approximately 480,000 compared to 2019. A new high-frequency survey conducted by the IAB since August 2020 sheds light on how establishments have adapted to the pandemic. Results show that the share of establishments that laid off workers has been limited. However, short-term work schemes are being used extensively as well as other personnel measures. Despite initial concerns, the vocational training system has remained robust.

The full article can be found in our Magazine IAB-Forum.

Click the following link for more articles in the series “COVID-19 Crisis: Consequences for the Labour Market"