Separations at the firm level

This paper analyzes the determinants of lay-offs, job-to-job movements and total separations with a unique data set that combines information on individual firms and their workers. We are in particular interested in whether the lay-off policy of firms can explain the relatively high level of unemployment amongst lower educated workers and the relatively strong sensitivity of their unemployment rate to the business cycle. We find that lay-off rates decrease with education but that the change over the cycle in the lay-off rate of workers with a lower level of education compared to that of workers with a higher level of education can not explain the stronger cyclicality of the unemployment rate for lower educated workers. We conclude that this stronger cyclicality is not due to the personnel policy of firms.