Temporary help agencies and workers' occupational mobility

This paper focuses on the occupational mobility of temporary helpagency workers by studying their job-to-job upgrading chances as opposedto those who have not been hired through these intermediaries. A screeningapproach to the role of those labor brokers suggests that agency workersmay expect greater chances of upgrading from one occupation to another.Results obtained with a sample of Spanish workers show that workingthrough those intermediaries comparatively offers stronger prospects ofoccupational upgrading for workers of a medium qualification level. Thisbasic result is reinforced when the existence of self-selection into thistype of intermediated work is appropriately taken into account.

Immigrant occupational mobility: Longitudinal evidence from Spain

This article examines the occupational mobility of immigrants between their countries of origin and Spain on the basis of one of the few surveys available internationally with longitudinal information on immigrant employment in home and host countries. The evidence shows that the occupational status of immigrants in the Spanish labour market is, in general, substantially worse than in their countries of origin. The severe loss of occupational status experienced by immigrants is explained by the combined effect of the intense initial downgrading they experience when entering the Spanish labour market and their very slow occupational progress during their stay in Spain. These findings are more in line with the segmented assimilation theory, which suggests a limited or blocked immigrant occupational mobility, than with the assimilation theory, which predicts a U-shaped evolution in the occupational status of immigrants between their home and host countries. As a result, the Spanish case contrasts sharply with previous evidence for other advanced countries, which tends to support the assimilation perspective. Finally, the empirical evidence suggests that one of the elements impeding the occupational mobility of immigrants in Spain is the significant size of the secondary segment of the labour market, which restricts immigrants' opportunities mainly to low-status occupations.

Occupational mobility and income differentials: The experience of Brazil between 2002 and 2010

Since the start of the twenty-first century, the Brazilian economy has experienced a growth cycle with characteristics unlike those of its previous historical experience, combining growth, macroeconomic stability and distributive progress. In this context, the study aims to analyse the factors and distributive effects of occupational mobility in Brazil, based on data obtained from the Monthly Employment Survey. The results suggest that: (i) mobility has been used in Brazil as a way to raise wages, even when it involves a drop in socio-occupational status; (ii) nonetheless, the wage increase obtained by changing job or occupational segment is smaller for poorer workers than for wealthier ones; and (iii) consequently, mobility helps to increase income, but it also tends to widen wage gaps.

The Use of New Technology and Occupational Mobility: An Event History Analysis of the Swiss Labor Market

The investigation of the consequences of new technologies has a long standing tradition within economics. Particularly, labor economists are wondering how the introduction of new technologies, e.g. Personal Computers, have shaped labor markets. Former research has concentrated on the question of whether on-the-job use of PCs creates a wage bonus for employees. In this paper, we investigate whether the use of PCs increases employees’ probability of an upward shift in their employment status and whether it reduces the risk of involuntary labor market exits. We do so by applying event history analysis to the Swiss Labor Market Survey, a random sample of 3028 respondents, and by analyzing a Panel sub-sample of 650 respondents conducted recently in Switzerland. Our results show that on-the-job use of PCs was beneficial for employees in the past by increasing their probability of an upward shift by approximately 50%. The analysis also suggests that PC use reduces the risk and duration of unemployment. However, these latter results fail to reach statistical significance.

Occupational mobility chains and the role of job opportunities for upward, lateral and downward mobility in Switzerland

This paper addresses the rarely studied relationship between job vacancies and inter-firm upward, lateral, and downward status mobility in an occupationally segmented labor market, taking Switzerland as the example. To conceptualize mobility mechanisms in this type of labor market, we introduce the concept of “occupational mobility chains” and test its validity. This concept provides the backdrop for developing time-dependent measures of individual job opportunities based on Swiss Job Monitor data. We link these measures with career data taken from the Swiss Life History Study and employ event history analysis to test different propositions of the ways in which status mobility is contingent on the number and the status of vacant positions. Results support our assumption that in occupationally segmented labor markets vacant positions affect status mobility only to the degree that they are located within workers’ occupational mobility chains.

How specific is apprenticeship training? Evidence from inter-firm and occupational mobility after graduation

Do apprenticeships convey mainly general or also firm- and occupation-specific human capital? Specific human capital may allow for specialization gains, but may also lead to allocative inefficiency due to mobility barriers. We analyse the case of Switzerland, which combines a comprehensive, high-quality apprenticeship system with a lightly regulated labour market. To assess human capital transferability after standardized firm-based apprenticeship training, we analyse inter-firm and occupational mobility and their effects on post-training wages. Using a longitudinal data set based on the PISA 2000 survey, we find high inter-firm and low occupational mobility within one year after graduation. Accounting for endogenous changes, we find a negative effect of occupation changes on wages, but no significant wage effect for firm changes. This indicates that occupation-specific human capital is an important component of apprenticeship training and that skills are highly transferable within an occupational field.

Occupational mobility of scientists and engineers.

S/N 038-000-00466-2

Survey of occupational mobility, conducted by the cooperating university research centers and the Social Science Research Council for the U. S. Department of the Air Force and the U. S. Bureau of the Census. Voluntary shifts of St. Paul workers 1940-44 and 1945-50.

Mimeographed.

Education and occupational mobility /

"October 1989."

Ability assessment and job structure measures in occupational mobility

Recent and potential changes in technology have resulted in the anticipation of increases in the frequency of job changes. This has led manpower policy makers to investigate the feasibility of incorporating the employment skills of job groups in the general prediction of future job learning and performance with a view to the establishment of "job families" within which transfer might be considered reciprocally high. A structured job analysis instrument (the Position Analysis Questionnaire) is evaluated in terms of two distinct sets of scores; job dimensions and synthetically established attribute/trait profiles. Studies demonstrate that estimates of a job's structure/dimensions and requisite human attributes can be reliably established. Three alternative techniques of statistically assembling profiles of the requisite human attributes for jobs are found to have differential levels of reliability and differential degrees of validity in their estimation of the "actual" ability requirements of jobs. The utility of these two sets of job descriptors to serve as representations of the cognitive structure similarity of job groups is investigated in a study which simulates a job transfer situation. The central role of the index of similarity used to assess the relationship between "target" and "present" job is demonstrated. The relative extents to which job structure similarity and job attribute similariity are associated with positive transfer are investigated. The studies demonstrate that the dimensions of jobs, and more fruitfully their requisite human attributes can serve as bases to predict job transfer learning and performance. The nature of the index of similarity used to optimally formulate predictions of transfer is such that networks of jobs might be establishable to which current job incumbents could be expected to transfer positively. The derivation of "job families" with anticipated reciprocal transfer consequences is considered to be less appropriate.

Do labour mobility and networks foster geographical knowledge diffusion? The case of European regions

The goal of this paper is twofold: first, we aim to assess the role played by inventors’ cross-regional mobility and networks of collaboration in fostering knowledge diffusion across regions and subsequent innovation. Second, we intend to evaluate the feasibility of using mobility and networks information to build cross-regional interaction matrices to be used within the spatial econometrics toolbox. To do so, we depart from a knowledge production function where regional innovation intensity is a function not only of the own regional innovation inputs but also external accessible R&D gained through interregional interactions. Differently from much of the previous literature, cross-section gravity models of mobility and networks are estimated to use the fitted values to build our ‘spatial’ weights matrices, which characterize the intensity of knowledge interactions across a panel of 269 regions covering most European countries over 6 years.

Doctors without borders: The returns to an occupational license for Soviet immigrant physicians in Israel

Re-licensing requirements for professionals that move across borders arewidespread. In this paper, we measure the returns to an occupationallicense using novel data on Soviet trained physicians that immigrated toIsrael. An immigrant re-training assignment rule used by the IsraelMinistry of Health provides an exogenous source of variation inre-licensing outcomes. Instrumental variables and quantile treatmenteffects estimates of the returns to an occupational license indicate excesswages due to occupational entry restrictions and negative selectioninto licensing status. We develop a model of optimal license acquisitionwhich suggests that the wages of high-skilled immigrant physicians in thenonphysician sector outweigh the lower direct costs that these immigrantsface in acquiring a medical license. Licensing thus leads to lower averagequality of service. However, the positive earnings effect of entry restrictionsfar outweighs the lower practitioner quality earnings effect that licensinginduces.