Beschäftigungsanpassung in deutschen Betrieben: Flexibler als gedacht?

The relationship between the dynamics of employment on the one side and hirings and separations on the other side is crucial for the dynamics of unemployment and the labour market response to recessions. Although the average level of hiring and separation is much lower in Germany than in the US, as expected, we find that the relationship between employment growth and worker flows in German establishments is very similar to the behavior of US establishments described in Davis et al. (2006, 2012), and quite different to the behavior of French establishments described in Abowd et al. (1999). Especially younger employees with shorter tenure, primary-level qualification, lower wages and non-standard employment contracts are laid off during phases of negative employment growth, but not exclusively.