دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی پایداری شغلی در اروپا در طول چرخه - وایلی 2017

Abstract

This paper investigates the evolution of job tenure for the time period 2002 to 2012 using micro data from the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS). Overall, the data show a slight increase in average job tenure at the EU level which can be explained by disproportional layoffs of short-tenured workers during the crisis. When controlling for changes in the demographic composition of the workforce, an underlying negative trend in mean tenure becomes visible. Job tenure evolved very differently across the EU before and during the crisis, highlighting the importance of the institutional framework, especially of employment protection legislation.

6 Conclusion

In summary, at the EU level, average job tenure increased slightly from 116.5 months in 2002 to 123 months in 2012. As this observation period includes the Great Recession, cyclical factors are likely to be an important explanation: First, short-tenured jobs were disproportionately destroyed during the crisis; second, there was less job creation during the crisis, leading to a lower number of newly created jobs (Bachmann et al, 2015). This is in line with evidence from the US provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) which reported that median tenure increased between 2006 and 2014 (BLS, 2014). Consequently, mean tenure is characterised by a strong cyclical component that has to be separated from long-term trends.

However, at the individual country level, strong heterogeneities prevail before the Great Recession and in the reaction to the recession. Possible reasons for diverging pre-crisis levels of mean tenure include composition effects in terms of the workforce or industry structure, different labour market institutions or country-specific preferences of workers in terms of the ‘lifetime employment relationship’. In terms of labour market institutions, employment protection legislation, and the prevalence of temporary contracts and, more generally, labour market flexibility appear to be particularly important.