Job security is an important aspect of work quality. Accumulating evidence shows that insecurity has deleterious impacts on individuals and households, and in the mid-1990s, job insecurity became a public and political issue. This paper critically examines the concept and measurement of job insecurity and examines trends based on representative survey data in a number of industrialised countries. There is some evidence that insecurity increased in the 1970s and 1980s. However, perceived rising insecurity during the 1990s was a middle-class phenomenon based in part on the experience of professional workers and on the finance industry. In recent years, most occupation groups in Britain have experienced declining insecurity, reflecting a return to historically low levels of unemployment. Insecure workers are concentrated in jobs with temporary contracts and short job tenures, and in the private sector. Plant and Machine Operators remain especially insecure. Workers in foreign-owned firms are experiencing greater insecurity in recent years, and this link is associated with competition from low-wage economies.
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Paper provided by Department of Economics, University of Kent in its series Studies in Economics with number
0305.
Length: Date of creation: Oct 2003 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:ukc:ukcedp:0305
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Find related papers by JEL classification: J2 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor J6 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies
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References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Jacobson, Louis S & LaLonde, Robert J & Sullivan, Daniel G, 1993.
"Earnings Losses of Displaced Workers,"
American Economic Review,
American Economic Association, vol. 83(4), pages 685-709, September.
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