Has Job Stability Declined Yet? New Evidence for the 1990's

51 Pages Posted: 3 Sep 2000 Last revised: 26 Oct 2022

See all articles by David Neumark

David Neumark

University of California, Irvine - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Daniel Polsky

Bloomberg School of Public Health, Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins University; Johns Hopkins University - Carey Business School

Daniel G. Hansen

Christensen Associates

Date Written: December 1997

Abstract

In earlier work we examined the temporal evolution of job stability in U.S. labor markets through the 1980's, using data assembled from a sequence of Current Population Survey tenure supplements. We found little or no change in aggregate job stability in the U.S. economy. In addition, older and more-tenured workers experienced increases in job stability in the" latter part of the 1980's. In this paper we update the evidence on changes in job stability through the mid-1990's, using recently-released CPS data for 1995 that parallel the earlier job tenure supplements. Updating the evidence from systematic random samples of the population and workforce through this period is especially important because the media have painted a particularly stark picture of declining job stability in the 1990's. In the aggregate, there is some evidence that job stability declined modestly in the first half of the 1990's. Moreover, the relatively small aggregate changes mask rather sharp declines in stability for workers with more than a few years of tenure. Nonetheless, the data available to this point do not support the conclusion that the downward shift in job stability for more-tenured workers stability, reflect long-term trends.

Suggested Citation

Neumark, David and Polsky, Daniel and Hansen, Daniel G., Has Job Stability Declined Yet? New Evidence for the 1990's (December 1997). NBER Working Paper No. w6330, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=226084

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