Job flows, worker flows and mismatching in Veneto manufacturing. 1982-1996

This research exploits a large employer-level panel dataset in order to analyse employment and worker flows for all establishments in a highly industrialized region in the North- East of Italy, the Veneto. Our results have relevance for models of job creation, job destruction and labour excess reallocation. The relation between separations from and accessions to existing jobs and between worker flows and job flows is scrutinized. Excess reallocation, the difference between worker flows and job flows at the plant level, is substantial. Mortality for new job matches is quite high and many new accessions are mismatched and lead to separations. Worker flows are very high for young workers to reduce drastically for workers after 35 years of age. The time series behaviour of worker flows and job excess reallocation from 1982 to 1996 is examined; worker level heterogeneity and employer level heterogeneity are discussed in determining the cyclical pattern of such flows and their rapid increment in more recent years. On this the paper makes progress in respect to the previous literature where turnover and excess reallocation are examined mainly in a static framework.