James R. Spletzer

Worker Characteristics, Job Characteristics, and the Receipt of On-the-Job Training

The authors examine the relationship between the receipt of employer-provided training and the characteristics of workers and jobs using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of the High School Class of 1972 and the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. They find that the intensity of training and the duration of training were negatively related; the incidence of training was slightly higher among women than among men, but the amount of training was higher among men; blacks received somewhat more training than whites; post-secondary education had a strong positive relationship with training; and aptitude had a positive effect on training. Training does not appear to have been affected by high school curriculum or by observable and unobservable factors specific to the individuals high school.

The Recent Decline in Employment Dynamics

We document and attempt to explain the recent decline in employment dynamics in the U.S. We have four major empirical findings. First, each measure exhibits a “stair step” pattern, with the declines concentrated in recessions and little increase during subsequent expansions. Second, changes in the composition of workers and businesses can explain only a small amount of the decline. Third, any explanation for the decline in job creation and job destruction will account for no more than one-third of the decline in hires and separations. Fourth, the decline in hires and separations is driven by the disappearance of short-duration jobs.JEL CodesE24, J63

The Contribution of Establishment Births and Deaths to Employment Growth

This article examines how establishment births and deaths contribute to job creation, job destruction, and net employment growth at different frequencies of measurement. The longitudinal data are constructed from quarterly unemployment-insurance microdata from the state of West Virginia and are essentially a census of establishments in all industries. Defining establishment births and deaths is an exercise in how to use cross-sectional administrative data for longitudinal research purposes. The analysis of job flows indicates that establishment births and deaths account for about 19% of quarterly job creation and destruction and well over half of triennial job creation and destruction.

Exploring Differences in Employment between Household and Establishment Data

Using a large data set that links individual Current Population Survey (CPS) records to employer-reported administrative data, we document substantial discrepancies in basic measures of employment status that persist even after controlling for known definitional differences between the two data sources. We hypothesize that reporting discrepancies should be most prevalent for marginal workers and for marginal or nonstandard jobs, and we find systematic associations between the incidence of reporting discrepancies and observable person and job characteristics that are consistent with this hypothesis. The paper discusses the implications of the reported findings for both micro and macro labor market analysis.

The Role of Establishments and the Concentration of Occupations in Wage Inequality

This paper uses the microdata of the Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) Survey to assess the contribution of occupational concentration to wage inequality between establishments and its growth over time. We show that occupational concentration plays an important role in wage determination for workers, in a wide variety of occupations, and can explain some establishment-level wage variation. Occupational concentration is increasing during the 2000-2011 time period, although much of this change is explained by other observable establishment characteristics. Overall, occupational concentration can help explain a small amount of wage inequality growth between establishments during this time period.

The Shifting Job Tenure Distribution

There has been a shift in the U.S. job tenure distribution toward longer-duration jobs since 2000. This change is apparent both in the tenure supplements to the Current Population Survey and the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics matched employer-employee data. A substantial portion of these changes are caused by the ageing of the workforce and the decline in the entry rate of new employer businesses. We show that the tenure distribution is a function of historical hiring rates and tenure-specific separation rates, and we use this framework to show that the shift in the tenure distribution is accounted for primarily by declines in the hiring rate, which are concentrated in the labor market downturns associated with the 2001 and 2007-2009 recessions. We also find that the increase in average real earnings since 2007 is less than what would be predicted by the shift toward longer-tenure jobs; this reflects declines in tenure-held-constant real earnings. Regression estimates of the returns to job tenure provide no evidence that the shift in the job tenure distribution is being driven by better matches between workers and employers.

The Recent Decline of Single Quarter Jobs

Rates of hiring and job separation fell by as much as a third in the U.S. between the late 1990s and the early 2010s. Half of this decline is associated with the declining incidence of jobs that start and end in the same calendar quarter, employment events that we call “single quarter jobs.” We investigate this unique subset of jobs and its decline using matched employer-employee data for the years 1996-2012. We characterize the worker demographics and employer characteristics of single quarter jobs, and demonstrate that changes over time in workforce and employer composition explain little of the decline in these jobs. We find that the decline in these jobs accounts for about a third of the decline in the fraction of the population that holds a job in the private sector that occurred from the mid 2000s to the early 2010s. We also find little evidence that single quarter jobs are stepping stones into longer-term employment. Finally, we show that the inclusion or exclusion of these single quarter jobs creates divergent trends in average earnings and the dispersion of earnings for the years 1996-2012. To the extent that administrative records measure the volatile tail of the employment distribution better thanconventional household surveys, these findings show that measurement of short duration jobs matters for economic analysis.

Hires, Separations, and the Job Tenure Distribution in Administrative Earnings Records

Statistics on hires, separations, and job tenure have historically been tabulated from survey data. In recent years, these statistics are increasingly being produced from administrative records. In this paper, we discuss the calculation of hires, separations, and job tenure from quarterly administrative records, and we present these labor market statistics calculated from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) program. We pay special attention to a phenomenon that survey data is ill-suited to analyze: single quarter jobs, which we define as jobs in which the hire and separation occur in the same quarter. We explore the trends of hires, separations, tenure, and single quarter jobs in the United States for the years 1998-2010. We discuss issues associated with creating these statistics from quarterly earnings records, and we identify the challenges that remain.

The Consequences of Long-Term Unemployment: Evidence from Linked Survey and Administrative Data

That the long-term unemployed fare worse in the labor market than do the short-term unemployed is well-known, but why? One potential explanation is that the long-term unemployed are “bad apples” who had poorer prospects from the outset of their spells (heterogeneity). Another is that these bad outcomes are a consequence of their extended unemployment (state dependence). The authors use Current Population Survey data on unemployed individuals linked to unemployment insurance wage records for the same people to distinguish between these explanations. The rich work history information contained in the wage records allows the authors to control for individual heterogeneity that could affect post-unemployment labor market outcomes. Even with these controls in place, they find that unemployment duration has a strongly negative effect on the likelihood of subsequent employment. The results are robust to accounting for differences in the labor market conditions experienced by the long-term and short-term unemployed.

The Consequences of Long Term Unemployment: Evidence from Matched Employer-Employee Data

It is well known that the long-term unemployed fare worse in the labor market than the short-term unemployed, but less clear why this is so. One potential explanation is that the long-term unemployed are “bad apples” who had poorer prospects from the outset of their spells (heterogeneity). Another is that their bad outcomes are a consequence of the extended unemployment they have experienced (state dependence). We use Current Population Survey (CPS) data on unemployed individuals linked to wage records for the same people to distinguish between these competing explanations. For each person in our sample, we have wage record data that cover the period from 20 quarters before to 11 quarters after the quarter in which the person is observed in the CPS. This gives us rich information about prior and subsequent work histories not available to previous researchers that we use to control for individual heterogeneity that might be affecting subsequent labor market outcomes. Even with these controls in place, we find that unemployment duration has a strongly negative effect on the likelihood of subsequent employment. This finding is inconsistent with the heterogeneity (“bad apple”) explanation for why the long-term unemployed fare worse than the short-term unemployed. We also find that longer unemployment durations are associated with lower subsequent earnings, though this is mainly attributable to the long-term unemployed having a lower likelihood of subsequent employment rather than to their having lower earnings once a job is found.