Labour Market Flows: Accounting for the Public Sector

Arbeitspapier

For the period between 2003 and 2018, we document a number of facts about worker gross flows in France, the United Kingdom, Spain and the United States, focussing on the role of the public sector. Using the French, Spanish and UK Labour Force Survey and the US Current Population Survey data, we examine the size and cyclicality of the flows and transition probabilities between private and public employment, unemployment and inactivity. We examine the stocks and flows by gender, age and education. We decompose contributions of private and public job-finding and job-separation rates to fluctuations in the unemployment rate. Public-sector employment contributes 20 percent to fluctuations in the unemployment rate in the UK, 15 percent in France and 10 percent in Spain and the US. Private-sector workers would forgo 0.5 to 2.9 percent of their wage to have the same job security as public-sector workers.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 12579

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity ; Business Fluctuations; Cycles ; Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure ; Public Sector Labor Markets ; Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers: General
• Subject: job-separation rate ; job-finding rate ; worker gross flows ; public sector ; public-sector employment

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Fontaine, Idriss ; Galvez-Iniesta, Ismael ; Gomes, Pedro Maia ; Vila-Martin, Diego
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2019

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/207404
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET