Employment trajectories in Germany: do firm characteristics and regional disparities matter?

Erwerbsverläufe in Deutschland: Zur Bedeutung betrieblicher Charakteristika und regionaler Disparitäten

Matthias Dütsch () and Olaf Struck
Additional contact information
Matthias Dütsch: Otto-Friedrich University of Bamberg
Olaf Struck: Otto-Friedrich University of Bamberg

Journal for Labour Market Research, 2014, vol. 47, issue 1, 107-127

Abstract: Abstract Life course research accentuates that employment trajectories are governed by individual determinants and endogenous causalities; thus, the start to the employment career enduringly affects workers’ future mobility patterns. However, their actions are always embedded within a particular framework: Their employment trajectories are influenced by firm-specific opportunity structures, regional heterogeneities, and the business cycle. This article focuses on the structural factors framing worker’s mobility processes. Structural and cyclical determinants were assessed by combining a German linked employer-employee dataset with data on regional economic characteristics from the statistical “spatial planning regions”. The hierarchically clustered data were explored with multilevel analysis models. These identified the key factors influencing employment stability; the determinants of upward, lateral, and downward interfirm mobility; and transitions leading to unemployment. Our results show that employees can minimize the endogenous causality by taking advantage of particular framework conditions: A firm’s investments in further training and internal infrastructure impact positively on employment trajectories, and work councils increase employment stability, especially during periods of economic growth. In contrast, employment trajectories are destabilized by disadvantageous firm demographics and intensive use of fixed-term employment. During an economic downswing, employment opportunities are better in densely populated areas, whereas unemployment risks dominate in rural areas. In the period of economic growth, all employees within a region benefit from a higher local level of human capital regardless of qualification level, whereas during an economic downturn, skill segregation prevails and only the highly qualified benefit.

Keywords: Job duration; Employment career; Structural effects; Linked employer-employee data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J62 J64 M51 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12651-014-0156-3 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:jlabrs:v:47:y:2014:i:1:d:10.1007_s12651-014-0156-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/12651

DOI: 10.1007/s12651-014-0156-3

Access Statistics for this article

Journal for Labour Market Research is currently edited by Joachim Möller

More articles in Journal for Labour Market Research from Springer, Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().