IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cen/wpaper/13-03.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Recent Decline in Employment Dynamics

Author

Listed:
  • Henry R. Hyatt
  • James Spletzer

Abstract

In recent years, the rate at which workers and businesses exchange jobs has declined in the United States. Between 1998 and 2010, rates of job creation, job destruction, hiring, and separation declined dramatically, and the rate of job-to-job flows fell by about half. Little is known about the nature and extent of these changes, and even less about their causes and implications. In this paper, we document and attempt to explain the recent decline in employment dynamics. Our empirical work relies on the four leading datasets of quarterly employment dynamics in the United States � the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD), the Business Employment Dynamics (BED), the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), and the Current Population Survey (CPS). We find that changes in the composition of the labor force and of employers explain relatively little of the decline. Exploiting some identities that relate the different measures to each other, we find that job creation and destruction could explain as much of a third of the decline in hires and separations, while job-to-job flows may explain more of the decline. We end our paper with a discussion of different possible explanations and their relative merits.

Suggested Citation

  • Henry R. Hyatt & James Spletzer, 2013. "The Recent Decline in Employment Dynamics," Working Papers 13-03, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
  • Handle: RePEc:cen:wpaper:13-03
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2013/CES-WP-13-03.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2013
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Melissa Bjelland & Bruce Fallick & John Haltiwanger & Erika McEntarfer, 2011. "Employer-to-Employer Flows in the United States: Estimates Using Linked Employer-Employee Data," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(4), pages 493-505, October.
    2. Henry Hyatt & James Spletzer, 2013. "The recent decline in employment dynamics," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 2(1), pages 1-21, December.
    3. Nir Jaimovich & Henry E. Siu, 2020. "Job Polarization and Jobless Recoveries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(1), pages 129-147, March.
    4. Fujita, Shigeru, 2018. "Declining labor turnover and turbulence," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 1-19.
    5. Giuseppe Moscarini & Fabien Postel-Vinay, 2013. "Stochastic Search Equilibrium," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(4), pages 1545-1581.
    6. MacLeod, W. Bentley, 2011. "Great Expectations: Law, Employment Contracts, and Labor Market Performance," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 18, pages 1591-1696, Elsevier.
    7. Cooper, Russell & Haltiwanger, John & Willis, Jonathan L., 2015. "Dynamics of labor demand: Evidence from plant-level observations and aggregate implications," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 37-50.
    8. Brigitte C. Madrian, 1994. "Employment-Based Health Insurance and Job Mobility: Is there Evidence of Job-Lock?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(1), pages 27-54.
    9. Alvarez, Fernando & Veracierto, Marcelo, 2001. "Severance payments in an economy with frictions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 477-498, June.
    10. Manning, Alan, 2011. "Imperfect Competition in the Labor Market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 11, pages 973-1041, Elsevier.
    11. Giuseppe Moscarini & Kaj Thomsson, 2007. "Occupational and Job Mobility in the US," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 109(4), pages 807-836, December.
    12. Jean-Baptiste Michau, 2013. "Creative Destruction with On-the-Job Search," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(4), pages 691-707, October.
    13. Regis Barnichon & Christopher J. Nekarda, 2012. "The Ins and Outs of Forecasting Unemployment: Using Labor Force Flows to Forecast the Labor Market," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 43(2 (Fall)), pages 83-131.
    14. Jovanovic, Boyan, 1979. "Job Matching and the Theory of Turnover," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 972-990, October.
    15. Miyamoto, Hiroaki & Takahashi, Yuya, 2011. "Productivity growth, on-the-job search, and unemployment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(6), pages 666-680.
    16. Hopenhayn, Hugo & Rogerson, Richard, 1993. "Job Turnover and Policy Evaluation: A General Equilibrium Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(5), pages 915-938, October.
    17. Lucia Foster & John C. Haltiwanger & C. J. Krizan, 2001. "Aggregate Productivity Growth: Lessons from Microeconomic Evidence," NBER Chapters, in: New Developments in Productivity Analysis, pages 303-372, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Julian di Giovanni & Andrei A. Levchenko, 2009. "Trade Openness and Volatility," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(3), pages 558-585, August.
    19. Jovanovic, Boyan & Moffitt, Robert, 1990. "An Estimate of a Sectoral Model of Labor Mobility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(4), pages 827-852, August.
    20. Acemoglu, Daron & Autor, David, 2011. "Skills, Tasks and Technologies: Implications for Employment and Earnings," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 12, pages 1043-1171, Elsevier.
    21. Robert E. Hall, 2004. "Measuring Factor Adjustment Costs," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(3), pages 899-927.
    22. Greg Kaplan & Sam Schulhofer‐Wohl, 2017. "Understanding The Long‐Run Decline In Interstate Migration," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 58(1), pages 57-94, February.
    23. Steven J. Davis & R. Jason Faberman & John Haltiwanger & Ron Jarmin & Javier Miranda, 2010. "Business Volatility, Job Destruction, and Unemployment," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 259-287, April.
    24. Davis, Steven J. & Faberman, R. Jason & Haltiwanger, John, 2012. "Labor market flows in the cross section and over time," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 1-18.
    25. Henry S. Farber, 2010. "Job Loss and the Decline in Job Security in the United States," NBER Chapters, in: Labor in the New Economy, pages 223-262, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    26. Tomaz Cajner & Isabel Cairo, 2013. "The Fading Dynamism of the US Labor Market: The Role of Demographics," 2013 Meeting Papers 1208, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    27. Matthew Dey & Susan Houseman & Anne Polivka, 2010. "What Do We Know About Contracting Out in the United States? Evidence from Household and Establishment Surveys," NBER Chapters, in: Labor in the New Economy, pages 267-304, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    28. John M. Abowd & Bryce E. Stephens & Lars Vilhuber & Fredrik Andersson & Kevin L. McKinney & Marc Roemer & Simon Woodcock, 2009. "The LEHD Infrastructure Files and the Creation of the Quarterly Workforce Indicators," NBER Chapters, in: Producer Dynamics: New Evidence from Micro Data, pages 149-230, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    29. Burdett, Kenneth & Mortensen, Dale T, 1998. "Wage Differentials, Employer Size, and Unemployment," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(2), pages 257-273, May.
    30. Steven J. Davis, 2008. "The Decline of Job Loss and Why It Matters," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 263-267, May.
    31. Gueorgui Kambourov & Iourii Manovskii, 2008. "Rising Occupational And Industry Mobility In The United States: 1968-97," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 49(1), pages 41-79, February.
    32. Steven J. Davis & John Haltiwanger & Ron Jarmin & Javier Miranda, 2007. "Volatility and Dispersion in Business Growth Rates: Publicly Traded versus Privately Held Firms," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2006, Volume 21, pages 107-180, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    33. Dube, Arindrajit & Freeman, Eric & Reich, Michael, 2010. "Employee Replacement Costs," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt7kc29981, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    34. Farber, Henry S., 1999. "Mobility and stability: The dynamics of job change in labor markets," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 37, pages 2439-2483, Elsevier.
    35. Robert Shimer, 2012. "Reassessing the Ins and Outs of Unemployment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 15(2), pages 127-148, April.
    36. Mortensen, Dale & Pissarides, Christopher, 2011. "Job Creation and Job Destruction in the Theory of Unemployment," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 1, pages 1-19.
    37. Paul R. Bergin & Robert C. Feenstra & Gordon H. Hanson, 2017. "Offshoring and Volatility: Evidence from Mexico’s Maquiladora Industry," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: International Macroeconomic Interdependence, chapter 2, pages 31-44, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    38. Richard Ericson & Ariel Pakes, 1995. "Markov-Perfect Industry Dynamics: A Framework for Empirical Work," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 62(1), pages 53-82.
    39. Abowd, John M. & Vilhuber, Lars, 2011. "National estimates of gross employment and job flows from the Quarterly Workforce Indicators with demographic and industry detail," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 161(1), pages 82-99, March.
    40. Burgess, Simon & Lane, Julia & Stevens, David, 2000. "Job Flows, Worker Flows, and Churning," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(3), pages 473-502, July.
    41. Henry Hyatt & Erika McEntarfer, 2012. "Job-to-Job Flows and the Business Cycle," Working Papers 12-04, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    42. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/22qd4iha9ql84kd2t534hdeb is not listed on IDEAS
    43. Henry Hyatt & Erika McEntarfer, 2012. "Job-to-Job Flows in the Great Recession," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(3), pages 580-583, May.
    44. Robert H. Topel & Michael P. Ward, 1992. "Job Mobility and the Careers of Young Men," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 439-479.
    45. Bruce Fallick & Charles A. Fleischman, 2004. "Employer-to-employer flows in the U.S. labor market: the complete picture of gross worker flows," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2004-34, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    46. Timothy Dunne & J. Bradford Jensen & Mark J. Roberts, 2009. "Producer Dynamics: New Evidence from Micro Data," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number dunn05-1.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Steven J. Davis & John Haltiwanger, 2014. "Labor Market Fluidity and Economic Performance," NBER Working Papers 20479, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Fujita, Shigeru, 2018. "Declining labor turnover and turbulence," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 1-19.
    3. Henry Hyatt & Erika McEntarfer & John Haltiwanger, 2014. "Cyclical Reallocation of Workers Across Large and Small Employers," 2014 Meeting Papers 735, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    4. Henry R. Hyatt & James R. Spletzer, 2016. "The Shifting Job Tenure Distribution†," Working Papers 16-12r, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    5. Niklas Engbom, 2018. "Firm and Worker Dynamics in an Aging Labor Market," 2018 Meeting Papers 1009, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    6. Hyatt, Henry R. & Spletzer, James R., 2016. "The shifting job tenure distribution," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 363-377.
    7. John Haltiwanger & Henry Hyatt & Erika McEntarfer, 2015. "Cyclical Reallocation of Workers Across Employers by Firm Size and Firm Wage," NBER Working Papers 21235, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Yashiv, Eran, 2007. "Labor search and matching in macroeconomics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(8), pages 1859-1895, November.
    9. Jordi Galí & Thijs van Rens, 2021. "The Vanishing Procyclicality of Labour Productivity [Why have business cycle fluctuations become less volatile?]," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(633), pages 302-326.
    10. Lucia Foster & Cheryl Grim & John Haltiwanger, 2016. "Reallocation in the Great Recession: Cleansing or Not?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(S1), pages 293-331.
    11. John Haltiwanger & James R. Spletzer, 2021. "Rising Between-Firm Inequality and Declining Labor Market Fluidity: Evidence of a Changing Job Ladder," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring Distribution and Mobility of Income and Wealth, pages 45-67, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Carrillo-Tudela, Carlos & Hobijn, Bart & She, Powen & Visschers, Ludo, 2016. "The extent and cyclicality of career changes: Evidence for the U.K," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 18-41.
    13. Henry Hyatt & Erika McEntarfer & Kevin McKinney & Stephen Tibbets & Doug Walton, 2014. "JOB-TO-JOB (J2J) Flows: New Labor Market Statistics From Linked Employer-Employee Data," Working Papers 14-34, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    14. Ryan Michaels & David Ratner & Michael Elsby, 2016. "Vacancy Chains," 2016 Meeting Papers 753, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    15. Mukoyama, Toshihiko, 2014. "The cyclicality of job-to-job transitions and its implications for aggregate productivity," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 1-17.
    16. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2711-2805 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Papageorgiou, Theodore, 2018. "Large firms and within firm occupational reallocation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 184-223.
    18. Borowczyk-Martins, Daniel & Lalé, Etienne, 2020. "The ins and outs of involuntary part-time employment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    19. Etienne Lalé, 2019. "Search and Multiple Jobholding," Upjohn Working Papers 19-305, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    20. Henry Hyatt & Erika McEntarfer & Ken Ueda & Alexandria Zhang, 2016. "Interstate Migration and Employer-to-Employer Transitions in the U.S.: New Evidence from Administrative Records Data," Working Papers 16-44, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    21. Shigeru Fujita & Makoto Nakajima, 2016. "Worker Flows and Job Flows: A Quantitative Investigation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 22, pages 1-20, October.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J63 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cen:wpaper:13-03. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Dawn Anderson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesgvus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.