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 occupations 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 occupation's wage distribution.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 12851

Classification and Topics

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

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Blien, Uwe ; Dauth, Wolfgang ; Roth, Duncan
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2019

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/215247
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET