In the literature job competition is often measured by the unemployment rate. By neglecting on-the-job search, however, the unemployment rate is likely to be a biased measure of job competition: various studies have suggested that on-the-job search varies over time and across groups of people, and might have a relevant impact on the outflow from unemployment. In the UK, for example, less than half of people who are actively looking for a job are unemployed; the other half already has a job. This paper estimates the direct impact of job competition on individual wages in the UK using data from the quarterly Labour Force Survey for the period 1993-2005. Measures of job competition based only on the unemployment rate are compared to measures that account for on-the-job search as well as regional accessibility. The results suggest that job competition has a negative impact on wages, and that this impact is not equally distributed across workers.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Institute for Social and Economic Research in its series ISER working papers with number
2007-06.
Length: 19 Date of creation: Mar 2007 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:ese:iserwp:2007-06
Contact details of provider: Postal: Publications Office, Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, Essex CO4 3SQ UK Phone: 44-1206-872957 Fax: 44-1206-873151 Web page: http://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/
Order Information: Postal: Publications Office, Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, Essex CO4 3SQ UK Email: Web: http://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/pubs/
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Paul Groves).