Industrial and occupational mobility : a study based on the IAB employment sample

Abstract

"It is well known that changes to another branch of industry or another job can be either voluntary, when workers seek better employment opportunities, or involuntary, when they take on another job after being made redundant. As the determinants and costs of these two types of mobility differ, the effects on the wage rate will also be different. On the basis of the human capital theory, possible influential factors and types of costs are discussed and examined for 1989 within the framework of a 'switching regression model'. At a greatly aggregated level, occupational mobility rates of about 7.2% and industrial mobility rates of about 6.6% can be determined in the IAB employment sample. The estimates show that the probability of changing branch of industry or job falls with increasing age and job experience or experience of a particular industry. Furthermore workers in large enterprises are less likely to change job or industry than workers in small enterprises. Unskilled workers change job or branch of industry more frequently than skilled manual and non-manual workers. The results of the estimates show clearly that workers who change job or branch of industry have on average lower hourly earnings than those who do not change, even if their personal characteristics do not differ greatly. If the model for potentially voluntary job changers is estimated, namely for workers with a maximum of four weeks' break in employment, the wage difference continues to remain on average negative. This suggests that occupational and industrial mobility is mainly involuntary. In addition to that, no clear influence of the estimated wage difference on the decision concerning mobility can be determined." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Mertens, A. (1997): Industrielle und berufliche Mobilität. Eine Untersuchung auf Basis der IAB-Beschäftigtenstichprobe. In: Mitteilungen aus der Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, Vol. 30, No. 3, p. 663-670.