Skip to main content

From Lifetime Jobs to Churning?

Summary

Using data over 1991–2008 for Switzerland, we investigate job stability through a series of Cox proportional hazards models. Our baseline results show that employment has become less stable for older male workers, with less noticeable change for other groups. However, when destination states are considered in the model, results indicate that younger workers face more transitions towards unemployment than before, whereas older male workers’ greater instability is caused by an increase in transitions to inactivity. It thus appears that the situation of young workers has deteriorated, while the evolution of older men’s job stability is at least partly explained by the increasing number of early retirements. For women, our results are largely consistent with their increasing participation rate and attachment to the labor market.

References

  • Abraham, K. G., and J. L. Medoff (1984), “Length of Service and Layoffs in Union and Nonunion Work Groups”, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 38(1), pp. 87–97.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Auer, P., and S. Cazes (2000), “The Resilience of the Long-Term Employment Relationship: Evidence from the Industrialized Countries”, International Labour Review, 139(4), pp. 379–408.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Autor, D. H., L. F. Katz, and M. S. Kearney (2008), “Trends in U. S. Wage Inequality: Revising the Revisionists”, Review of Economics and Statistics, 90(2), pp. 300–323.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bergemann, A., and A. Mertens (2011), “Job Stability Trends, Lay-Offs, and Transitions to Unemployment in West Germany”, Labour, 25(4), pp. 421–446.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Biscourp, P., and F. Kramarz (2007), “Employment, Skill Structure and International Trade: Firm-Level Evidence for France”, Journal of International Economics, 72(1), pp. 22–51.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blossfeld, H. P., and G. Rohwer (2002), Techniques of Event History Modeling, 2nd edn., Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boisjoly, J., G. J. Duncan, and T. Smeeding (1998), “The Shifting Incidence of Involuntary Job Losses from 1968 to 1992”, Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, 37(2), pp. 207–231.

    Google Scholar 

  • Booth, A. L., M. Francesconi, and C. Garcia-Serrano (1999), “Job Tenure and Job Mobility in Britain”, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 53(1), pp. 43–70.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bratberg, E., K. G. Salvanes, and K. Vaage (2010), “Has Job Stability Decreased? Population Data from a Small Open Economy”, Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 112(1), pp. 163–183.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Breslow, N. (1974), “Covariance Analysis of Censored Survival Data”, Biometrics, 30(1), pp. 89–99.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burgess, S., and H. Rees (1996), “Job Tenure in Britain 1975–92”, Economic Journal, 106(435), pp. 334–344.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burgess, S., and H. Rees (1998), “A Disaggregate Analysis of the Evolution of Job Tenure in Britain, 1975–1993”, British Journal of Industrial Relations, 36(4), pp. 629–655.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cox, D. R. (1972), “Regression Models and Life-Tables”, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series B (Methodological), 34(2), pp. 187–220.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cox, D. R. (1975), “Partial Likelihood”, Biometrika, 62(2), pp. 269–276.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dickerson, A., and F. Green (2012), “Fears and Realisations of Employment Insecurity”, Labour Economics, 19(2), pp. 198–210.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diebold, F. X., D. Neumark, and D. Polsky (1996), “Comment on Kenneth A. Swinnerton and Howard Wial, ‘Is Job Stability Declining in the U. S. economy?’”, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 49(2), pp. 348–352.

    Google Scholar 

  • Diebold, F. X., D. Neumark, and D. Polsky (1997), “Job stability in the United States”, Journal of Labor Economics, 15(2), pp. 206–233.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • European Commission (2006), Employment in Europe 2006, chap. 2.

    Google Scholar 

  • Farber, H. S. (1998), “Are Lifetime Jobs Disappearing? Job Duration in the United States, 1973–1993”, in Labor Statistics Measurement Issues, J. Haltiwanger, M. E. Manser, and R. Topel, eds., pp. 157–206, University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Farber, H. S. (1999), “Mobility and Stability: The Dynamics of Job Change in the Labor Markets”, in Handbook of Labor Economics, O. C. Ashenfelter and D. Card, eds., vol. 3B, chap. 37, pp. 2439–2483, Amsterdam: Elsevier Science.

    Google Scholar 

  • Farber, H. S. (2007), “Is the Company Man an Anachronism? Trends in Long Term Employment in the U. S. between 1973 and 2005”, in The Price of Independence: The Economics of Early Adulthood, S. H. Danziger and C. E. Rouse, eds., chap. 3, pp. 56–83, New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

    Google Scholar 

  • Farber, H. S. (2009), “Job Loss and the Decline in Job Security in the United States”, working paper, Princeton University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Friedberg, L., and M. Owyang (2004), “Explaining the Evolution of Pension Structure and Job Tenure”, Working Paper 10714, National Bureau of Economic Research.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Giannelli, G. C., U. Jaenichen, and C. Villosio (2012), “Have Labor Market Reforms at the Turn of the Millennium Changed the Job and Employment Durations of New Entrants?”, Journal of Labor Research, 33(2), pp. 143–172.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Givord, P., and E. Maurin (2004), “Changes in Job Security and Their Causes: An Empirical Analysis for France, 1982–2002”, European Economic Review, 48(3), pp. 595–615.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gottschalk, P., and R. Moffitt (1999), “Changes in Job Instability and Insecurity Using Monthly Survey Data”, Journal of Labor Economics, 17(S4), pp. S91–S126.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gregg, P., and J. Wadsworth (1995), “A Short History of Labour Turnover, Job Tenure, and Job Security, 1975–93”, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 11(1), pp. 73–90.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gregg, P., and J. Wadsworth (2002), “Job Tenure in Britain, 1975–2000. Is a Job for Life or just for Christmas?”, Oxford Bulletin of Economics & Statistics, 64(2), pp. 111–134.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Guo, G. (1993), “Event-History Analysis for Left-Truncated Data”, Sociological Methodology, 23, pp. 217–243.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hall, R. E. (1982), “The Importance of Lifetime Jobs in the U. S. Economy”, American Economic Review, 72(4), pp. 716–724.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heisz, A. (1999), “Changes in Job Duration in Canada”, Industrial Relations, 54(2), pp. 365–387.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heisz, A. (2005), “The Evolution of Job Stability in Canada: Trends and Comparisons with U. S. Results”, Canadian Journal of Economics, 38(1), pp. 105–127.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hirsch, B., and C. Schnabel (2010), “Women Move Differently: Job Separations and Gender”, IZA Discussion Paper 5154, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).

    Google Scholar 

  • Jaeger, D. A., and A. H. Stevens (1999), “Is Job Stability in the United States Falling? Reconciling Trends in the Current Population Survey and Panel Study of Income Dynamics”, Journal of Labor Economics, 17(S4), pp. S1–S28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jovanovic, B. (1979), “Job Matching and the Theory of Turnover”, Journal of Political Economy, 87(5), pp. 972–990.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kalbfleisch, J. D., and R. L. Prentice (2002), The Statistical Analysis of Failure Time Data, 2nd edn., Wiley-Interscience.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kiefer, N. M. (1988), “Economic Duration Data and Hazard Functions”, Journal of Economic Literature, 26(2), pp. 646–679.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lancaster, T. (1990), The Econometric Analysis of Transition Data, Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lo Turco, A., D. Maggioni, and M. Picchio (2013), “Offshoring and Job Stability: Evidence from Italian Manufacturing”, Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 26, pp. 27–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mahringer, H. (2004), “Recent Trends in Job Stability: Evidence from Austrian Social Security records”, pp. 37–72, Wien: WIFO Österreichisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung: Arbeitsplatzreallokation und Arbeitskräftemobilität.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marinescu, I. (2009), “Job Security Legislation and Job Duration: Evidence from the United Kingdom”, Journal of Labor Economics, 27(3), pp. 465–486.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • OECD (2004), “Employment Protection Regulation and Labour Market Performance”, in Employment Outlook, Paris: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rodriguez, D., and M. Zavodny (2003), “Changes in the Age and Education Profile of Displaced Workers”, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 56(3), pp. 498–510.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rodrik, D. (1998), “Why Do more Open Economies Have Bigger Governments?”, Journal of Political Economy, 106(5), pp. 997–1032.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rokkanen, M., and R. Uusitalo (2010), “Changes in Job Stability: Evidence from Lifetime Job Histories”, IZA Discussion Paper 4721, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).

    Google Scholar 

  • Rothe, T., G. C. Giannelli, and U. Jaenichen (2013), “Doing Well in Reforming the Labour Market? Recent Trends in Job Stability and Wages in Germany”, C18-V1, ZBW–Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften.

    Google Scholar 

  • Royalty, A. B. (1998), “Job-to-Job and Job-to-Nonemployment Turnover by Gender and Education Level”, Journal of Labor Economics, 16(2), pp. 392–443.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schmidt, S. R. (1999), “Long-Run Trends in Workers’ Beliefs about their Own Job Security: Evidence from the General Social Survey”, Journal of Labor Economics, 17(S4), pp. S127–S141.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sousa-Poza, A. (2004), “Job Stability and Job Security: A Comparative Perspective on Switzerland’s Experience in the 1990s”, European Journal of Industrial Relations, 10(1), pp. 31–49.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Swinnerton, K. A., and H. Wial (1995), “Is Job Stability Declining in the U. S. Economy?”, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 48(2), 293–304.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Swinnerton, K. A., and H. Wial (1996), “Is Job Stability Declining in the U. S. Economy? Reply to Diebold, Neumark, and Polsky”, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 49(2), pp. 352–355.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ureta, M. (1992), “The Importance of Lifetime Jobs in the U. S. Economy, Revisited”, American Economic Review, 82(1), pp. 322–335.

    Google Scholar 

  • Valletta, R. G. (1999), “Declining Job Security”, Journal of Labor Economics, 17(S4), pp. S170–S197.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Winkelmann, R., and K. F. Zimmermann (1998), “Is Job Stability Declining in Germany? Evidence from Count Data Models”, Applied Economics, 30(11), pp. 1413–1420.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zavodny, M. (2003), “Technology and Job Separation among Young Adults, 1980–98”, Economic Inquiry, 41(2), pp. 264–278.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sylvain Weber.

Rights and permissions

Open Access  This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Weber, S., Luzzi, G.F. From Lifetime Jobs to Churning?. Swiss J Economics Statistics 150, 227–260 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03399407

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03399407

Keyword

JEL-Classification