Explaining the Increase in On-the-job Search
Evidence from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) reveals that the percentage of employed workers searching for other jobs more than doubled in Canada between 1976 and 1995. Comparable evidence from the Current Population Survey (CPS), Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), and National Longitudinal Survey (NLS) suggests that the U.S. experienced a remarkably similar upward trend in on-the-job search (OJS) over this period. Using U.S. data to supplement the Canadian data wherever possible, this paper attempts to explain this long-term, secular trend in Canadian OJS rates by performing decomposition and industry-level analyses, and by considering concomitant changes in employer-to-employer transition rates and the wage returns to job changing. The results from both countries suggest that an important part of the upward trend in OJS rates is not explained by compositional effects, including cohort effects. The OJS increase seems also to have occurred independently of rising job insecurity due to sector-specific demand shocks and trends in the dispersion of log wage residuals. The data are most consistent with a long-term decrease in search costs.
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
| Length: | |
| Date of creation: | 29 Apr 2005 |
| Date of revision: | |
| Handle: | RePEc:stc:stcp3e:2005250e |
| Contact details of provider: | Postal: Web page: http://www.statcan.gc.ca More information through EDIRC
|
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.:
- Alan Manning & Ted To, 2002. "Oligopsony and Monopsonistic Competition in Labor Markets," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 155-174, Spring.
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:stc:stcp3e:2005250e. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Mark Brown)
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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.