Occupational routine-intensity and the costs of job loss: Evidence from mass layoffs

Arbeitspapier

This paper analyses how differences in the degree of occupational routine-intensity affect the costs of job loss. We use worker-level data on mass layoffs in Germany between 1980 and 2010 and provide causal evidence that workers who used to be employed in more routine-intensive occupa-tions suffer larger and more persistent earnings losses after the mass layoff. Furthermore, we are able to show that, at least initially, earnings losses are primarily due to a reduction in the number of days in employment, suggesting that routine-intensive workers face considerable frictions in the adjustment to job loss. Conditional on finding a new job, routine-intensive workers are more likely to change their occupations but end up systematically in the lower end of their new occupa-tion's wage distribution.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IAB-Discussion Paper ; No. 25/2019

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity ; Labor Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs ; Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
• Subject: difference-in-differences ; Germany ; labour market biographies ; mass layoffs ; routine-intensity ; routine-replacing technological change

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Blien, Uwe ; Dauth, Wolfgang ; Roth, Duncan
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB)
• (where): Nürnberg
• (when): 2019

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/222385
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET