IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jlabrs/v57y2023i1d10.1186_s12651-023-00351-w.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Employment trajectories of workers in low-skilled jobs in Western Germany

Author

Listed:
  • Arthur Kaboth

    (Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health)

  • Lena Hünefeld

    (Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health)

  • Ralf Himmelreicher

    (Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health)

Abstract

According to the segmentation theory, low-skilled jobs belong to the secondary sector of the labour market. Low-skilled jobs do not require vocational training and workers are interchangeable. Therefore, workers in this sector have poor working conditions and are regularly affected by employment interruptions. The current state of research, however, does not provide any longitudinal information about individual employment stability of workers performing low-skilled jobs. Furthermore, most of these workers are employed full-time and have completed professional training. Against this background, this paper deals with employment trajectories of workers in low-skilled jobs and their changes over time with regard to standard employment relationship. The aim of the explorative study is to analyse the assignment of workers in low-skilled jobs within the segmentation theory and to determine how segments have changed over time. We use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) to analyse the employment trajectories of two cohorts aged 35 to 44 years in Western Germany over a period of ten years. The employment trajectories are compared by means of sequence analysis with optimal matching algorithm as well as cluster analysis applying the “Partitioning Around Medoids” method (PAM) in combination with results from hierarchical ward clusters. The employment trajectories indicate that low-skilled jobs can be assigned to both the secondary and the primary sectors. The cohort comparison of employment trajectories shows change and continuity in the context of segments.

Suggested Citation

  • Arthur Kaboth & Lena Hünefeld & Ralf Himmelreicher, 2023. "Employment trajectories of workers in low-skilled jobs in Western Germany," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 57(1), pages 1-17, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jlabrs:v:57:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1186_s12651-023-00351-w
    DOI: 10.1186/s12651-023-00351-w
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1186/s12651-023-00351-w
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1186/s12651-023-00351-w?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicola Barban & Francesco C. Billari, 2012. "Classifying life course trajectories: a comparison of latent class and sequence analysis," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 61(5), pages 765-784, November.
    2. Krause, Alexandra & Köhler, Christoph, 2011. "Von der Vorherrschaft interner Arbeitsmärkte zur dynamischen Koexistenz von Arbeitsmarktsegmenten," WSI-Mitteilungen, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 64(11), pages 588-596.
    3. Bellmann Lutz & Hübler Olaf, 2014. "The Skill Shortage in German Establishments Before, During and After the Great Recession," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 234(6), pages 800-828, December.
    4. Hall, Anja & Sevindik, Ugur, 2020. "Einfacharbeit in Deutschland - wer arbeitet was und unter welchen Bedingungen? Ergebnisse aus der BIBB/BAuA-Erwerbstätigenbefragung 2018," Wissenschaftliche Diskussionspapiere, Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB), Bonn, volume 127, number 218, July.
    5. Marcel Garz, 2013. "Labour Market Segmentation: Standard and Non-Standard Employment in Germany," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 14(3), pages 349-371, August.
    6. Matthias Studer & Gilbert Ritschard, 2016. "What matters in differences between life trajectories: a comparative review of sequence dissimilarity measures," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 179(2), pages 481-511, February.
    7. Elke Holst & Anna Wieber, 2014. "Bei der Erwerbstätigkeit der Frauen liegt Ostdeutschland vorn," DIW Wochenbericht, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 81(40), pages 967-975.
    8. Reich, Michael & Gordon, David M & Edwards, Richard C, 1973. "A Theory of Labor Market Segmentation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(2), pages 359-365, May.
    9. Eichhorst, Werner & Buhlmann, Florian, 2015. "Die Zukunft der Arbeit und der Wandel der Arbeitswelt," IZA Standpunkte 77, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Bosch, Gerhard & Kalina, Thorsten & Lehndorff, Steffen & Wagner, Alexandra & Weinkopf, Claudia, 2001. "Zur Zukunft der Erwerbsarbeit: Eine Positionsbestimmung auf der Basis einer Analyse kontroverser Debatten," Arbeitspapiere 43, Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, Düsseldorf.
    11. Krause, Peter & Möhring, Katja & Zähle, Tanja, 2009. "Erwerbsverläufe beim Übergang in den Ruhestand," WSI-Mitteilungen, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 62(11), pages 586-595.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Julia Mikolai & Hill Kulu, 2019. "Union dissolution and housing trajectories in Britain," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 41(7), pages 161-196.
    2. Marc A. Scott & Kaushik Mohan & Jacques‐Antoine Gauthier, 2020. "Model‐based clustering and analysis of life history data," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 183(3), pages 1231-1251, June.
    3. Liao, Tim F. & Bolano, Danilo & Brzinsky-Fay, Christian & Cornwell, Benjamin & Fasang, Anette Eva & Helske, Satu & Piccarreta, Raffaella & Raab, Marcel & Ritschard, Gilbert & Struffolino, Emanuela & S, 2022. "Sequence analysis: Its past, present, and future," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 107, pages 1-1.
    4. Andrade, Stefan B. & Fasang, Anette Eva & Helske, Satu & Karhula, Aleksi, 2023. "Typologies in Sequence Analysis: Practical Guidelines for Identifying Robust Cluster Solutions," SocArXiv kj8d5, Center for Open Science.
    5. Jerzy Kaźmierczyk & Jerzy Kaźmierczyk, 2019. "Workforce segmentation model: banks' example," Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, VsI Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Center, vol. 6(4), pages 1938-1954, June.
    6. Marc A. Scott & Jean-Marie Goff & Jacques-Antoine Gauthier, 2024. "History matters: the statistical modelling of the life course," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 445-469, February.
    7. Torsten Lietzmann, 2017. "The Contribution of Mothers’ Employment on Their Family's Chances of Ending Welfare Benefit Receipt in Germany. Analysis of a Two-Stage Process," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 22(2), pages 142-162, May.
    8. Elsenburg, Leonie K. & Rieckmann, Andreas & Bengtsson, Jessica & Jensen, Andreas Kryger & Rod, Naja Hulvej, 2024. "Application of life course trajectory methods to public health data: A comparison of sequence analysis and group-based multi-trajectory modeling for modelling childhood adversity trajectories," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 340(C).
    9. Zhen Li & Zai Liang, 2016. "Gender and job mobility among rural to urban temporary migrants in the Pearl River Delta in China," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(16), pages 3455-3471, December.
    10. Marcel Raab & Emanuela Struffolino, 2020. "The Heterogeneity of Partnership Trajectories to Childlessness in Germany," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 36(1), pages 53-70, March.
    11. Etienne Wasmer & Nicolas Lepage-Saucier & Juliette Schleich, 2013. "Moving towards a single labour contract: pros, cons and mixed feelings," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03460980, HAL.
    12. Klimczuk, Andrzej & Klimczuk-Kochańska, Magdalena, 2016. "Dual Labor Market," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, pages 1-3.
    13. Sudha Narayanan & Digvijay S Negi & Tanu Gupta, 2023. "Separability, spillovers, and segmented markets : Evidence from dairy in India," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 54(6), pages 884-899, November.
    14. Christine Mayrhuber & Julia Bock-Schappelwein, 2018. "Dimensionen plattformbasierter Arbeit in Österreich und Europa. Implikationen für die soziale Sicherheit," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 61667.
    15. Devillanova, Carlo & Raitano, Michele & Struffolino, Emanuela, 2019. "Longitudinal employment trajectories and health in middle life: Insights from linked administrative and survey data," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 40, pages 1375-1412.
    16. Sauer, Stefan & Garnitz, Johanna & von Maltzan, Annette, 2022. "Fachkräftemangel aus Unternehmenssicht: Auswirkungen und Lösungsansätze. Jahresmonitor der Stiftung Familienunternehmen," Studien, Stiftung Familienunternehmen / Foundation for Family Businesses, number 265550.
    17. Andy Dickerson & Emily McDool & Damon Morris, 2023. "Post-compulsory education pathways and labour market outcomes," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(3), pages 326-352, May.
    18. Cees H. Elzinga & Matthias Studer, 2019. "Normalization of Distance and Similarity in Sequence Analysis," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 48(4), pages 877-904, November.
    19. Ravi Srivastava, 2019. "Emerging Dynamics of Labour Market Inequality in India: Migration, Informality, Segmentation and Social Discrimination," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 62(2), pages 147-171, June.
    20. Étienne Wasmer, 2001. "Changements de composition de la force de travail et dualisme," Reflets et perspectives de la vie économique, De Boeck Université, vol. 0(1), pages 133-148.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Low-skilled jobs; Employment trajectories; Standard employment; Segmentation theory; Sequence and cluster analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C38 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Classification Methdos; Cluster Analysis; Principal Components; Factor Analysis
    • J42 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Monopsony; Segmented Labor Markets
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:jlabrs:v:57:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1186_s12651-023-00351-w. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.