Employee-owned firms and the careers of young workers

Gabriel Burdin and Jose Garcia-Louzao

Labour Economics, 2025, vol. 93, issue C

Abstract: Using detailed administrative data from Spain, we characterize how a first work experience in an employee-owned firm (EOF) versus a conventional firm can affect workers’ careers. We find that workers’ exposure to EOFs at the time of entry reduces daily wages by 8% over the first 15 years in the labor market. The wage penalty appears to be driven by differences in job mobility and wage returns to experience rather than by non-random selection. We show that workers who had their first job in EOFs have a strong attachment to this organizational model and are less likely to experience both voluntary and involuntary job separations over their careers, with quit and layoff rates 8% and 4% lower, respectively. In addition, we quantify lower wage returns to experience in EOFs, although there are no differences in subsequent career progression in terms of promotions. Taken together, the analysis suggests the existence of other job amenities offered by EOFs that may compensate for flatter wage profiles.

Keywords: Employee-owned firms; Careers; Wages; Job mobility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J31 J50 J62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927537125000132
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Employee-Owned Firms and the Careers of Young Workers (2025)
Working Paper: Employee-Owned Firms and the Careers of Young Workers (2023)
Working Paper: Employee Owned Firms and the Careers of Young Workers (2023)
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:eee:labeco:v:93:y:2025:i:c:s0927537125000132

DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102686

Access Statistics for this article

Labour Economics is currently edited by A. Ichino

More articles in Labour Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().