Occupational human capital and earnings losses of displaced workers: does the degree of similarity between pre- and post-displacement occupations matter?

Berufliches Humankapital und Einkommensverluste von freigesetzten Arbeitskräften: Wie sehr kommt es darauf, dass sich die Beschäftigungsverhältnisse vor und nach dem Arbeitsplatzverlust ähneln?

Kritkorn Nawakitphaitoon () and Russell Ormiston
Additional contact information
Kritkorn Nawakitphaitoon: Renmin University of China
Russell Ormiston: Allegheny College

Journal for Labour Market Research, 2015, vol. 48, issue 1, 57-73

Abstract: Abstract This paper examines the effect of accumulated human capital, and particularly occupational human capital, on the earnings losses of displaced workers. Unlike most of the previous studies of job displacement, this paper uses a continuous measure of occupational skills transferability to measure the similarity between the pre- and post-displacement occupations of reemployed displaced workers. Using the 2004, 2006, 2008, and 2010 Displaced Worker Survey (DWS), the main finding is that post-displacement earnings losses are highly correlated with the degree of similarity between pre- and post-displacement occupations. Displaced workers who find jobs in occupations similar to their previous jobs suffer smaller earnings losses than those who find less similar jobs. This relationship is non-linear in that higher skills transferability reduces the earnings losses at a decreasing rate as the transferability of occupational skills increases.

Keywords: Job displacement; Occupational human capital; Skills transferability; Earnings losses; Verlagerung von Arbeitsplätzen; Berufliches Humankapital; Übertragbarkeit von Kompetenzen; Einkommensverluste (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J31 J62 J63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12651-014-0169-y 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:48:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1007_s12651-014-0169-y

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

DOI: 10.1007/s12651-014-0169-y

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 ().