Non-standard employment and mobility in the Netherlands

Dekker, Ronald (2007): Non-standard employment and mobility in the Netherlands.

Abstract

In the last 25 years the number of flexible jobs has been expanding in most European countries. For example, in the Netherlands in 1995, about 11 per cent of workers was working in a fixed-term temporary job and about 37 per cent of workers was working in a part-time job. Seven years later, in 2002 these percentages had increased to 14 per cent and 44 per cent. It should be noted however, that the increase in temporary jobs already reached 13 per cent in 1998 and is fairly stable since, whereas the percentage of part-time jobs is still increasing in 2002. For the purpose of this paper, the focus will be on several forms of contractual flexibilisation: temporary contracts , small part-time contracts , on-call and replacement contracts, casual and seasonal work and work with temporary work agencies. These jobs are all defined as non-standard employment.The labour market in the Netherlands is characterised by quite some mobility between the various labour market states. The high mobility rates between non-standard and standard jobs, except for the small jobs and on-call contracts as part of non-standard employment, provide arguments for defending the hypothesis that the Dutch labour market is not characterised by a clear-cut segmentation of non-standard and standard jobs. An important finding is that there is a high degree of path dependence in labour market transitions. Earlier experience in standard employment increases the transition probabilities into standard employment, both for the nonemployed and for non-standard workers. Earlier experience in either non-standard or non-standard employment also reduces the probability of ‘falling back’ into nonemployment. Previous unemployment does not reduce the chances of finding a job for the nonemployed but does reduce the chances of finding a standard job for non-standard workers.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: job mobility; non-standard employment; panel data; Netherlands
• Subjects: J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J6 - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers > J62 - Job, Occupational, and Intergenerational Mobility; C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C2 - Single Equation Models ; Single Variables > C23 - Panel Data Models ; Spatio-temporal Models; C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C1 - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General > C15 - Statistical Simulation Methods: General

References

Arulampalam, Wiji, (2001), ‘Is Unemployment really scarring? Effects of unemployment experiences on wages, The Economic Journal 111, F585-F606

Booth, AL, & M Francesconi and C Garcia-Serrano (1999), ‘Job Tenure and Job Mobility in Britain’, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, vol. 53(1), pp. 43-70.

Booth, Alison L., Marco Francesconi, Jeff Frank, (2002), ‘Temporary jobs: stepping stones or dead ends?’, The Economic Journal, 112 (480), F189–F213

Bradley et al., (2003), ‘Social exclusion and labour market transitions: a multi-state multi-spell analysis using the BHPS’, Labour Economics 10, pp. 659-679

Casey et al., (1997), Employers’ Use of Flexible Labour, PSI Publishing, London

Dekker, Ronald, (2001), ‘‘A phase they're going through': transitions from non-standard to standard jobs in Germany, The Netherlands and Great Britain’, paper presented at at the Symposium 2001, The Hague, Netherlands and the LoWER Conference on Combining Work, Home, and Education, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal.

Dekker, Ronald & Lutz Kaizer, (2000) ‘Atypical or Flexible? How to define Non-Standard Employment Patterns - The cases of Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom’, EPAG Working Paper 14, Colchester: University of Essex

Dekker, Ronald, (1999), Transitions on a flexible labour market, A Dutch-German comparison with the use of panel data, paper presented at the European Societiy of Population Economics conference 1999, University of Turin, Turin, Italy.

DiTella & McCulloch (2003), ‘The consequences of labour market flexibility: Panel evidence based on survey data, European Economic Review, in press

Felstead & Jewson (1999), Global Trends in Flexible Labour, MacMillan, London

Golsch, K., (2003), Employment flexibility in Spain and its impact on transitions to adulthood, Work, Employment & Society, 17, 4, 713-740.

Gong, X. & Soest, A.H.O. van (2002). ‘Wage differentials and mobility in the urban labour market: A panel data analysis for Mexico’. Labour Economics, vol. 9(4), pp. 513-529.

Goudswaard, A., (2003), Flexibele arbeid, duurzame arbeid?, TNO Arbeid, Hoofddorp (in Dutch)

Gourieroux, C. (2000), Econometrics of Qualitative Dependent Variables, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK

Guadalupe, M., (2003), The hidden costs of fixed term contracts: the impact on work accidents, Labour Economics, 10, pp. 339-357

Heckman, James J & Honore, Bo E, (1990). ‘The Empirical Content of the Roy Model’, Econometrica, vol. 58(5), pp. 1121-49

Hujer, R., & H. Schneider, (1989), ‘The analysis of labor market mobility using panel data’, European Economic Review, vol. 33, pp. 530-536.

Kaiser, Ulrich (2001), ‘Moving In and Out of Financial Distress: Evidence for Newly Founded Service Sector Firms’, ZEW Discussion Paper No. 01-09, Mannheim.

Kalleberg, A.L., (2000), ‘Nonstandard employment relations: Part-time, temporary and contract work’, Annual Review of Sociology, vol. 26, pp. 341-365

Kalleberg et al, (2000), ‘Externalizing employment: flexible staffing arrangements in US organizations’, Social Science Research, vol. 32, pp. 525-552

Kiefer, Nicholas M., George R. Neumann (eds.), (1989), Search models and Applied Labor Economics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Lipmann, S.A. & J.J. McCall, (1976), ‘The economics of job search: A survey’, Economic Inquiry, vol. 14, pp. 155-189

Magnac, Th. (1991), ‘Segmented or Competitive Labor Markets?’, Econometrica, vol. 59(1), pp.165

Magnani, E., (2003), ‘The productivity slowdown, sectoral reallocations and the growth of atypical employment arrangements’, Journal of Productivity Analysis, vol. 20 (2), pp. 121-142

McNabb, R. (1987), ‘Testing for labour market segmentation in Britain’, Manchester Business School, No. 3, pp. 257-273

McNabb, R. and Ryan, P (1990), Segmented labour markets, in: Sapsford, D. and Tzannatos, Z. (eds) Current issues in labour economics, MacMillan, London.

Mortensen, D.T., (1970), ‘Job search, the duration of unemployment and the Phillips curve’, American Economic Review, vol. 60, pp. 847-862.

Mortensen, D.T., (1977), ‘Unemployment insurance and job search decisions’, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, pp. 505-517.

Mortensen, D.T., (1986), Job search and labor market analysis, In: O. Aschenfelter & R. Layard (eds.), Handbook of labor economics vol. II, Elsevier Press, Amsterdam.

Muffels, R. Dekker, R. & Stancanellli, E., (1998) Flexible and Permanent Jobs on the External Labour Market: Empirical Analyses of Labour Market Mobility Patterns using Panel Data (in: Flexible and Permanent Jobs on the Dutch Labour Market by Muffels, Ruud & Steijn, Bram eds.), AWSB/TISSER, Utrecht

Muffels, R., R. Dekker, E. Stancanelli, (1998) Een flexibele baan: opstap naar een vaste baan of eindstation?, Tijdschrift Sociale Wetenschappen, 42(1), (in Dutch)

Muffels, R., & R. Luijkx, (2004), Globalisation and Male Job Mobility in European Welfare States, Tisser, Tilburg, mimeo

Murphy, Edna, (1996), Flexible work, Director Books, Hemel Hempstead. Narendrathan, W., & S. Nickell, (1985), ‘Modelling the process of job search’, Journal of Econometrics, 28, pp. 29-49.

Narendrathan, W., & S. Nickell, (1986), Estimating the parameters of interest in a job search model, In: R. Blundell & I. Walker (eds.), Unemployment, search and labour supply, pp. 1-14, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Nguyen van, P., Kaiser, U., Lainey, F. (2000). ‘The performance of German firms in the business related services sector: a dynamic analysis’, ZEW discussion paper 00-38, Mannheim

OSA, (2000-2003) Labour market trend report. OSA, Tilburg

Pinker & Larson (2002), ‘Optimizing the use of contingent labor when demand is uncertain’, European Journal of Operations Research, 144, pp. 39-55

Roy, A.D. (1951), ‘Some Thoughts on the Distribution of Earnings’, Oxford Economic Papers, Vol. 3, pp. 135-146.

Stern, S. (1997). ‘Simulation-Based Estimation’, Journal of Economic Literature, vol. 35(4), pp. 2006-2039.

Van Ours, Jan C., (2004), ‘The locking-in effect of subsidized jobs’, Journal of Comparative Economics, vol. 32, pp. 37-55

Virtanen P, Liukkonen V, Vahtera J, et al. (2003), ‘Health inequalities in the workforce: the labour market core-periphery structure’, International Journal of Epidemiology, vol. 32 (6), pp. 1015-1021