Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung

Trade and qualifikation

Foreign markets determine success and failure of those industries that have become reliant on foreign demand, impair the demand for employment and invoke changes in occupational fields and qualification requirements. This paper aims to disclose the direct and indirect influence of major trading partners on Germany's production, employment, and qualification needs. It projects the effects by using the dynamic macro-econometric input-output model INFORGE. Industrialised economies are the most important determinants for employment in the manufacturing industries. Business-related services are highly indirectly affected. The growth impact of industrialised nations is declining while BRICS nations are gaining momentum. A shift towards higher qualification needs can be observed.

IAB-Discussion Paper 7/2013

The scars of youth

Does early-career unemployment cause future unemployment? The autors answer this question with German administrative matched employer-employee data that track more than 800,000 individuals over 24 years. Using a censored quantile instrumental variable estimator and instrumenting early-career unemployment with local labor market conditions at labor market entry and firm-specific labor demand shocks, they find significant and longlasting scarring effects. At the median, an additional day of unemployment during the first eight years on the labor market increases unemployment in the following 16 years by 0.96 days. Effects are even stronger in the right tail of the unemployment distribution. Likely due to unobserved heterogeneity in returns to search, they are also understated by non-IV estimates.

IAB-Discussion Paper 6/2013

Subsidies for substitutes?

This paper estimates substitution effects of the German active labour market programme "JobPerspektive", a wage subsidy for hard-to-place welfare recipients. Results provide little evidence for widespread substitution of regular workers due to receiving this particular subsidy; in fact, regular employment is somewhat increased in West Germany as a result of subsidization.

IAB-Discussion Paper 5/2013

Does it matter where you work?

Using rich German linked employer-employee data and endogenous switching regression models, this paper shows that large firms and firms with a high export share or a low proportion of fixed-term workers provide higher wage growth for low-wage workers. While having many low-paid co-workers dampens the wage growth of both low-wage workers and higher-wage workers, there are also employers who provide higher wage growth only for higher-wage workers.

IAB-Discussion Paper 4/2013 

Effects of participating in skill training and workfare on employment entries for lone mothers receiving means-tested benefits in Germany

This paper investigates employment effects of further vocational training, short classroom training, as well as One-Euro-Jobs for lone mothers receiving Unemployment Benefit II (UB II) in Germany. Lone mothers receiving UB II participate in these active labor market programs at very high rates. As soon as their youngest child is aged three or above, their program entry rates are as high as for childless singles. This paper examines whether lone mothers can actually profit from partici-pating in these programs, given low levels of childcare provision. 

IAB-Discussion Paper 3/2013