Applying data from 13 waves of the Swiss Labor Force Survey (1991-2003) I assess costs and benefits of fixed-term contracts. First, I analyze the existence of a contract related wage gap and the effort response of temporary employees in terms of unpaid overtime hours. Second, I investigate...

Stylized facts show that migrants more often face overqualified employment than natives. As shown by previous research, one third of the employed foreign born with tertiary education in the EU-15 are overqualified, with levels reaching up to 57.6%, compared to 20.9% among natives. Among the...

Workers who lose their jobs can become re-employed either by being recalled to their previous employers or by finding new jobs. Workers' chances for recall should influence their job search strategies, so the rates of exit from unemployment by these two routes should be directly related. We...

We examine the impacts of time-limited unemployment insurance (UI) and active labor market programs (ALMP) on the duration and outcome of job search in Norway. We use a comprehensive simultaneous equations model accounting for i) the duration of unemployment spells; ii) their outcomes, iii)...

In the Netherlands, students who want to become a medical specialist have to enrol in a training program which is in limited supply. During the search for a position as trainee (or "junior medical specialist"), they may accept a temporary job as a medical assistant. We use a micro data set to...

This paper considers a job search model where the environment is not stationary along the unemployment spell and where jobs do not last forever. Under this circumstance, reservation wages can be lower than without separations, as in a stationary environment, but they can also be initially higher...

We consider the early labour market experience of young persons. Using a large data sample of Norwegian individuals finishing education in 1989-91, we analyse the transition from school to work and the duration of the first job. We allow the search duration, the accepted wage, and the job...

In this paper, we specify and estimate a structurally dependent competing risks model for the transitions out of unemployment into either new job or recall. The recall probability is allowed to affect the search intensity for new jobs.

This paper examines the determinants of unemployment duration in a competing risks framework with two destination states, namely, inactivity and employment. The major innovation is our recognition of defective risks. We first use a polynomial hazard function to test for the presence of...