Earnings on the Information Technology Roller Coaster: Insight from Matched Employer-Employee Data

FRB of Atlanta Working Paper No. 2005-11

32 Pages Posted: 5 Jul 2005

See all articles by Julie L. Hotchkiss

Julie L. Hotchkiss

Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta; Georgia State University - Department of Economics

M. Melinda Pitts

Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

John Robertson

Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

Date Written: June 2005

Abstract

This paper uses matched employer-employee data for the state of Georgia to examine workers' earnings experience through the information technology (IT) sector's employment boom of the mid-1990s and its bust in the early 2000s. The results show that even after controlling for individual characteristics before the sector's boom, transitioning out of the IT sector to a non-IT industry generally resulted in a large wage penalty. However, IT service workers who transitioned to a non-IT industry still fared better than those who took a non-IT employment path. For IT manufacturing workers, there is no benefit to having worked in tech, likely because of the nontransferability of manufacturing experience to other industries.

Keywords: Information technology, earnings, employer-employee matched data

JEL Classification: J31, J24

Suggested Citation

Hotchkiss, Julie L. and Pitts, M. Melinda and Robertson, John C., Earnings on the Information Technology Roller Coaster: Insight from Matched Employer-Employee Data (June 2005). FRB of Atlanta Working Paper No. 2005-11, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=752244 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.752244

Julie L. Hotchkiss

Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta ( email )

Research Department
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Georgia State University - Department of Economics ( email )

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M. Melinda Pitts (Contact Author)

Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta ( email )

1000 Peachtree Street, NE
Atlanta, GA 30309-4470
United States
404-498-7009 (Phone)
404-498-8956 (Fax)

John C. Robertson

Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta ( email )

1000 Peachtree Street, NE
Atlanta, GA 30309-4470
United States
404-521-8782 (Phone)
404-521-8956 (Fax)

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