John Hurley

Assessing Recent Employment Shifts in Europe Using a Multidimensional Job Quality Indicator

The main aim of this chapter is to enrich our analysis of changes of the employment structure in the EU during 1998–2007 by developing a new broad-based job quality measure to view those changes. Specifically, we formulate a multidimensional measure of job amenities1 based on non-pecuniary job dimensions which derives from the sociological literature on job quality. We then operationalize this measure by matching survey items from the Fourth European Working Conditions survey (2005) data set to the job amenity dimensions identified in order to generate a job quality value at individual respondent level. This allows us to extend the jobs project analysis in new directions using a richer indicator of job quality measured at the individual as well as the job level.