Temporary Help Agencies and Occupational Mobility*

This paper analyses the effects of Temporary Help Agencies (THA) on occupational mobility by performing an empirical comparison of the job‐to‐job upgrading chances of agency and regular (non‐agency) workers in Spain. We estimate a switching regression model to allow for self‐selection into agency work because of, for instance, more motivated workers being more likely to search for jobs through a THA. We find evidence in favour of the existence of self‐selection in all qualification groups considered. Concerning mobility, we find that agency workers in intermediate qualification levels are less likely to experience demotions than regular workers. THA increase the probability of high‐skilled workers achieving a permanent contract in Spain.     

Temporary jobs and job search effort in Europe

Using longitudinal data on individuals from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) for eleven countries during 1995-2001, I investigate temporary job contract duration and job search effort. The countries are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. I construct a search model for workers in temporary jobs which predicts that shorter duration raises search intensity. Calibration of the model to the ECHP data implies that at least 75% of the increase in search intensity over the life of a 2+ year temporary contract occurs in the last six months of the contract. I then estimate regression models for search effort that control for human capital, pay, local unemployment, and individual and time fixed effects. I find that workers on temporary jobs indeed search harder than those on permanent jobs. Moreover, search intensity increases as temporary job duration falls, and roughly 84% of this increase occurs on average in the shortest duration jobs. These results are robust to disaggregation by gender and by country. These empirical results are noteworthy, since it is not necessary to assume myopia or hyperbolic discounting in order to explain them, although the data clearly also do not rule out such explanations.     

Matching,Reallocation and Changes in Earnings Dispersion*

The ‘fractal’ nature of the rise in earnings dispersion is one of its key features. In this paper, we offer a new perspective on the causes of changes in earnings dispersion, focusing on the role of labour reallocation. We set out a framework showing that job and worker reallocation affects earnings dispersion. We quantify this using a data set comprising almost the universe of workers and employers in Maryland. The changing allocation of workers to jobs played a significant role in explaining movements in the dispersion of earnings.     

The cyclicality of effective wages within employer-employee matches in a rigid labor market

This study analyzes real wage cyclicality for male full-time workers within employer-employee matches in Germany over the period 1984-2004. Five different wage measures are compared: the standard hourly wage rate; hourly wage earnings including overtime and bonus pay; the effective wage, which takes into account unpaid overtime; and monthly earnings, with and without additional pay. None of the hourly wage measures exhibits cyclicality except for the group of salaried workers with unpaid overtime. Their effective wages show a strongly procyclical reaction to changes in unemployment. Despite acyclical wage rates, salaried workers without unpaid overtime experienced procyclical earnings movements if they had income from extra pay. Monthly earnings were also procyclical for hourly paid workers with overtime pay. These findings suggest that cyclical earnings movements are generated by variable pay components, such as bonuses and overtime pay, and by flexible working hours. The degree of earnings procyclicality revealed for the German labor market is comparable to the United States.     

Preferences,Comparative Advantage,and Compensating Wage Differentials for Job Routinization*

I attempt to explain why there is not much evidence on compensating wage differentials for job disamenities. I focus on the match between workers’ preferences for routine jobs and the variability in tasks associated with the job. Using data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, I find that mismatched workers earn lower wages and that both male and female workers in routinized jobs earn, on average, 5.5% and 7% less than their counterparts in non‐routinized jobs. However, once preferences and mismatch are accounted for, this difference decreases to 2% for men, and 4% for women, not statistically significant in both cases.     

Job satisfaction and gender: Why are women so happy at work?

By most objective standards, women's jobs are worse than men's, yet women report higher levels of job satisfaction than do men. This paper uses a recent large-scale British survey to document the extent of this gender differential for eight measures of job satisfaction and to evaluate the proposition that identical men and women in identical jobs should be equally satisfied. Neither the different jobs that men and women do, their different work values, nor sample selection account for the gender satisfaction differential. The paper's proposed explanation appeals to the notion of relative well-being, especially relative to workers' expectations. An identical man and woman with the same jobs and expectations would indeed report identical job satisfaction, but women's expectations are argued to be lower than men's. This hypothesis is supported by the finding that the gender satisfaction differential disappears for the young, the higher-educated, professionals and those in male-dominated workplaces, for all of whom there is less likely to be a gender difference in job expectations.     

Occupational downgrading and bumping down: The combined effects of education and experience

Job competition between workers has important implications for “downgrading” and “bumping down”. To account for these phenomena, a matching model is considered in which highly educated and poorly educated workers compete for skilled jobs. An exogenous increase in the proportion of highly skilled workers increases the proportion of these workers in low-level jobs (downgrading). Another of the paper's findings is that changes in the composition of the workforce affect workers' opportunities to accumulate experience. An increase in the relative supply of highly educated workers reduces the opportunities for poorly educated workers to learn on the job. Both education and experience are required in order to access skilled jobs.     

ATTITUDES TOWARDS ECONOMIC RISK AND THE GENDER PAY GAP

This paper examines the links between gender differences in attitudes towards economic risk and the gender pay gap. Consistent with the literature on the socio-economic determinants of attitudes towards economic risk, it shows that females are much more risk averse than males. It then extends this research to show that workers with more favorable attitudes towards risk are associated with higher earnings, and that gender differences in attitudes towards economic risk can account for a small, though important, part of the standardized gender pay gap.     

Fits,misfits and interactions: learning at work,job satisfaction and job‐related well‐being

The resource‐based view (RBV) of the firm has focused attention on the importance of aligning employees' needs with the requirements of the jobs they do. This article focuses on how these needs and requirements interact in terms of learning. It does so in two ways. First, it develops new survey instruments to capture the learning demands of jobs and the learning dispositions of workers and uses them for the first time in a survey of 2,810 employees. Second, it examines how these person and job characteristics correlate with specific aspects of job satisfaction and job‐related well‐being. The results show that although learning alignment is associated with high levels of satisfaction and well‐being, not all learning misalignments are associated with the reverse.     

Human Capital Spillovers within the Workplace: Evidence for Great Britain*

In this paper, we use a unique matched worker–workplace data set to estimate the effect on own earnings of co‐workers’ education. Our results, using the 1998 GB Workplace Employee Relations Survey, show significant effects. An independent, significantly positive effect from average workplace education is evident; own earnings premia from years of education fall only slightly when controlling for workplace education. This result suggests that the social returns to education are strongly positive – working with colleagues who each had 1.2 years (1 standard deviation) of more education than the average worker, boosts own earnings by 11.1%. An additional year of any single co‐worker's education is worth about 3.2% of an additional own year of education. We also test for interactions between own and co‐worker education levels and for ‘skills incompatibility’ when worker education levels are heterogeneous. The interactions appear negative: own education is not much valued at workplaces where co‐workers’ education levels are already high. There is no evidence that workplace heterogeneity in worker education levels adversely affects own earnings. This result runs counter to theoretical predictions, and suggests that workers compete in tournaments for high‐paying jobs.     

The effect of job satisfaction on job search: Not just whether,but also where

Using survey data of public sector employees in the Netherlands, this paper shows that workers' satisfaction with various job domains not only affects whether but also where workers search for another job. An intuitive pattern emerges. Workers try to leave their current employer when they are uncomfortable with an organisation-specific job domain, like management. Conversely, when workers are dissatisfied with a job domain that differs sufficiently across jobs within an organisation, like autonomy, they look for another position in their current organisation. Dissatisfaction with job domains which may have an industry-specific component, such as job duties, drives workers out of their industry. The findings provide a unique view on the relative heterogeneity of job domains across jobs within organisations and industries.     

Local labor market impacts of energy boom-bust-boom in Western Canada

The impacts of energy price boom and bust are analyzed through the differential growth in employment and earnings between local labor markets with and without energy resources in Western Canada. The estimated differentials attributed to the boom-induced labor demand shocks show significant direct and indirect impacts on the earnings and employment within the energy extraction and other non-energy local sectors respectively. The local job multipliers indicate that job creation within the energy extraction sector leads to modest job creation within the non-energy local sectors during boom periods. For every ten energy extraction jobs created during a boom period, approximately three construction jobs, two retail jobs, and four and a half service jobs are created.     

Low Pay,Higher Pay and Job Satisfaction in Wales

Abstract

Using the first six waves of the Welsh boosts to the British Household Panel Survey this paper attempts to explain the determinants of overall job satisfaction and four facets of job satisfaction in Wales, distinguishing between female and male workers and low-paid and higher paid workers. The motivation of the paper is the claim made widely in the EU that low-paid jobs are jobs of inherently low quality, in which case we should expect that job satisfaction would be lower in low-paid jobs. Since there are proportionately more low-paid workers in Wales than in either England or Scotland we would also expect to find that job satisfaction would be lower in Wales than in the other two countries.     

Loneliness,job satisfaction,and organizational commitment of migrant workers: empirical evidence from China

This study examines the relationship between loneliness, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment of migrant workers. 213 migrant workers completed the survey. This study found that migrant workers are satisfied with their jobs and are committed to their organizations. Contrary to expectation, migrant workers are not lonely. Age and gender do not have influence on loneliness or organizational commitment. Single migrant workers feel lonelier than the married migrant workers. Married and longer-tenured migrant workers are more committed to the organization. There is no significant correlation between loneliness and organizational commitment. This research also indicates that lonelier migrant workers have higher job satisfaction while job satisfaction has significant positive correlation with organization commitment. Implications include having favorable policies to improve the management and services for migrant workers, a need for regulations to safeguard the migrant workers' rights and interests, and providing favorable living arrangements.     

Endogenous job destruction and job matching in cities

We propose a spatial search-matching model where both job creation and job destruction are endogenous. Workers are ex ante identical but not ex post since their jobs can be hit by a technological shock which decreases their productivity. They reside in a city, and commuting to the job center involves both pecuniary and time costs. As a result, workers with high wages are willing to live closer to jobs to save on time commuting costs. We show that, in equilibrium, there is a one-to-one correspondence between the productivity space and the urban location space. Workers with high productivities and wages reside close to jobs, have low per distance commuting costs and pay high land rents. We also show that higher per distance commuting costs and higher unemployment benefits lead to more job destruction.     

Subsidizing low-skilled jobs in a dual labor market

We introduce a matching model that allows for classical and frictional unemployment. The labor market is dual featuring low-skilled and high-skilled workers and simple and complex jobs. Simple jobs pay a minimum wage, while wages in the complex jobs are determined by Nash bargaining. Opportunities for low-skilled workers are limited to simple jobs; while high-skilled unemployed can apply for both types of jobs, and thereby can accept to be downgraded. We analyze the outcomes of simple job subsidy policies assuming that government budget is balanced through taxes on occupied workers. We first give conditions for the existence and uniqueness of a steady-state equilibrium and we then analyze the effects of different fiscal instruments. We show that in this set-up, increasing simple job subsidies does not necessarily reduce low-skilled unemployment or unemployment spells. By introducing heterogeneous skills and possible downgrading of the high-skilled workers, we show that the effectiveness of such policies in reducing the classical unemployment is decreasing. In fact, any additional classical unemployed re-entering the job market is accompanied by an increasing number of high-skilled workers downgrading to low-skilled jobs. We calibrate the model on French labor market data. It is found that for five low-skilled workers leaving classical unemployment, two high-skilled workers are downgraded.     

A multiobjective interval programming model to explore the trade-offs among different aspects of job satisfaction under different scenarios

The need for greater concern about job quality/satisfaction seems clear, due to its potential link with workers' productivity, to the extent it affects employees' quitting behaviour, absenteeism, turnover, and firms' productivity. In order to guide managers and policy makers when making decisions related to future hiring of human resources, a multiobjective interval programming model, based on the results of an econometric estimation, is suggested where different (and conflicting) aspects of job satisfaction are considered. The modelling framework thus obtained allows assessing the trade-offs among the different aspects of job satisfaction under different scenarios herein given within interval ranges. Data obtained from Spain are used to carry out the model's instantiation. Possibly efficient solutions are then generated with the help of scalarizing problems relying on reference point-based methods. The solution approach herein proposed allows computing with a lower computational effort the closest “possibly” efficient solutions attainable regarding their corresponding interval ideal solutions. Overall, the results obtained highlight the trade-off between earnings and quality of life, particularly under a pessimistic scenario, with the maximization of earnings leading to the lowest value of the working times. Conversely, the lowest value obtainable for earnings is reached with the consideration of both scenarios when the maximization of the satisfaction of the quality of life seekers is attained. Finally, the trade-off between less prone to risk workers and quality of life seekers is also revealed, with the lowest job security levels found in the solution that maximizes working times.     

Are contingent jobs dead ends or stepping stones to regular jobs? Evidence from a structural estimation

The proportion of part-time, dispatch, and temporary workers has increased in many developed economies in recent years. These workers receive lower average wages and benefits, and are subject to lower employment stability. This paper analyzes the effects of initially taking such jobs on the employment careers of young workers. We build an on-and-off-the-job search model, using Japanese data to perform a structural estimation of the model parameters and simulate career paths, in order to study the effects of the initial choice of employment on the probability of having a regular job in the future and on the welfare of the worker. We find that although contingent jobs are neither stepping stones towards regular employment nor dead ends, starting a career in a contingent job has a lasting effect on the welfare of the individual in Japan.     

Unions and the economic basis of attitudes

Unions make differences to employee satisfaction that correspond to their effects on individual economic advantage. Panel data reveal how changes in economic circumstance and changes in job satisfaction are linked to changes in union coverage. When individuals move into a union covered job they receive a wage mark‐up and express enhanced pay satisfaction. Conversely, those moving from a union covered job on average lose any mark‐up and have significantly reduced satisfaction. Similar findings emerge for working hours. On average individuals prefer shorter hours, something they tend (not) to achieve on moving (out of) into a unionised job, resulting in higher (lower) satisfaction. Switching into union coverage lowers satisfaction with job security, even though coverage has no effect on the risk of unemployment. This is because covered employees suffer greater costs of re‐employment for a given level of unemployment risk, partly because of loss of the union mark‐up.     

Performance Pay,Union Bargaining and Within‐Firm Wage Inequality*

Theory predicts that performance pay boosts wage dispersion. Workers retain a share of individual productivity shocks and high‐efficiency workers receive compensation for greater effort. Collective bargaining can mitigate the effect of performance pay on wage inequality by easing monitoring of common effort standards and group‐based pay schemes. Analyses of longitudinal employer–employee data show that the introduction of performance‐related pay raises wage inequality in non‐union firms, but not in firms with high union density. Although performance‐related pay appears to be on the rise, the overall impact on wage dispersion is likely to be small, particularly in European countries with influential unions.