Job and Worker Turnover in German Establishments

We use a simple regression-based approach to measure the relationship between employment growth, hirings and separations in a large panel of German establishments over the period 1993-2009. 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 behaviour of US establishments described in Davis, Faberman & Haltiwanger (2006, 2011), and quite different to the behaviour of French establishments described in Abowd, Corbel & Kramarz (1999). The relationship is very stable over time, even during the most recent economic crisis, and across different types of establishment.