In this paper, we study the role of occupational skills in individuals’ labor market transitions. Using rich data on skills required in occupations, we introduce a concept of occupation-specific human capital and develop empirical measures for occupational specificity and occupation distance....

This paper for the first time jointly analyses the consequences of adverse selection, signalling and indices on entry wages of skilled employees. It uses German linked employer employee panel data (LIAB) and introduces a measure for relative productivity of skilled job applicants based on...

Apprenticeship training in Germany is generally considered to be an investment of companies into the human capital of their apprentices. This view is mainly based on the German cost benefit studies which testify training firms high net costs for their apprenticeships, but these results have not...

In this paper, we use firm-level data to analyse a firmÕs costs of recruiting apprentices in Germany. We find that recruitment costs amount on average to 600 Euros per hire (approximately one month of apprentice pay), but costs are heterogenous across firms and vary strongly with the training...

This paper provides new empirical evidence on the magnitude and the determinants of a firm's costs to fill a vacancy. We establish empirical facts about hiring costs based on representative establishment-level data from Switzerland. In 2009, average costs to fill a vacancy for a skilled worker...

Using Swiss Labor Force Survey data from 1996 to 2009, this study estimates the earning losses of workers experiencing an involuntary job separation. We follow two empirical approaches: the method usually applied in the literature (fixed-effects estimation) and a new approach (Poisson...

Hiring workers is costly and therefore influences the firm’s labor demand. We make use of Swiss administrative survey data on directly measured hiring costs in order to quantify both their magnitude and determinants at the firm-level. Our results show that hiring costs are substantial, as...

This paper analyzes the structure of hiring costs of skilled workers in Germany. Using detailed and representative firm-level data on recruitment and adaptation costs of new hires, we find that average hiring costs amount to more than 8 weeks of wage payments (4,700 Euros). The structure of...

We examine how different student employment statuses during tertiary education affect short-term and medium-term labor market returns. We focus on differences between students studying full-time and students studying and working part-time, i.e., ‘earning while learning’. In addition, we...

The paper assess the potential free-riding of non-training firms on the training efforts of training firms and analyses differences in recruitment of apprenticeship graduates trained elsewhere between training and non-training firms. The paper shows that only 5.6 per cent of non-training firms...