IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/zewdip/20090.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Career paths in online labor markets: Same, same but different?

Author

Listed:
  • Seifried, Mareike
  • Jurowetzki, Roman
  • Kretschmer, Tobias

Abstract

The emergence of online labor markets calls the validity of traditional career models into question. Given the volatility and digital nature of this environment, short-term employment relationships and heterogeneity of workers, employers and tasks in these markets, it is unclear how careers might unfold - whether they are largely random and accidental or whether there are distinct trajectories and patterns in online careers. We document dominant career paths and develop a taxonomy of novel career patterns in OLMs. This addresses recent calls for research to update and refine our theories and understanding of careers (Rahman et al., 2016). We adopt a quantitative-inductive approach to describe workers' careers in terms of their task and skill specialization. This helps us understand the different types of careers on a continuum between more stable and random, unsystematic careers. Our results provide an innovative way of thinking about career development in OLMs and open up several fruitful areas of future research.

Suggested Citation

  • Seifried, Mareike & Jurowetzki, Roman & Kretschmer, Tobias, 2020. "Career paths in online labor markets: Same, same but different?," ZEW Discussion Papers 20-090, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:zewdip:20090
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/228543/1/1744203997.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel D. Lee & H. Sebastian Seung, 1999. "Learning the parts of objects by non-negative matrix factorization," Nature, Nature, vol. 401(6755), pages 788-791, October.
    2. Christina Gathmann & Uta Schönberg, 2010. "How General Is Human Capital? A Task-Based Approach," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(1), pages 1-49, January.
    3. David H. Autor & Michael J. Handel, 2013. "Putting Tasks to the Test: Human Capital, Job Tasks, and Wages," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(S1), pages 59-96.
    4. Eggenberger, Christian & Rinawi, Miriam & Backes-Gellner, Uschi, 2018. "Occupational specificity: A new measurement based on training curricula and its effect on labor market outcomes," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 97-107.
    5. David H. Autor, 2001. "Wiring the Labor Market," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 25-40, Winter.
    6. Acemoglu, Daron & Autor, David, 2011. "Skills, Tasks and Technologies: Implications for Employment and Earnings," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 12, pages 1043-1171, Elsevier.
    7. Jamin D. Speer, 2017. "Pre-Market Skills, Occupational Choice, and Career Progression," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 52(1), pages 187-246.
    8. Jyldyz Djumalieva1 & Cath Sleeman, 2018. "An Open and Data-driven Taxonomy of Skills Extracted from Online Job Adverts," Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE) Discussion Papers ESCoE DP-2018-13, Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE).
    9. Rosen, Sherwin, 1983. "Specialization and Human Capital," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(1), pages 43-49, January.
    10. Uwe Sunde, 2008. "Human Capital Formation, Education and Earnings Inequality," Applied Economics Quarterly (formerly: Konjunkturpolitik), Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 54(1), pages 7-26.
    11. Shintaro Yamaguchi, 2012. "Tasks and Heterogeneous Human Capital," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(1), pages 1-53.
    12. Borchert, Kathrin & Hirth, Matthias & Kummer, Michael E. & Laitenberger, Ulrich & Slivko, Olga & Viete, Steffen, 2018. "Unemployment and online labor," ZEW Discussion Papers 18-023, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chiara Belletti & Daniel Erdsiek & Ulrich Laitenberger & Paola Tubaro, 2021. "Crowdworking in France and Germany," Working Papers hal-03468022, HAL.

    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. Seifried, Mareike, 2021. "Transitions from offline to online labor markets: The relationship between freelancers' prior offline and online work experience," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-101, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    2. Ralph Stinebrickner & Todd Stinebrickner & Paul Sullivan, 2019. "Job Tasks, Time Allocation, and Wages," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(2), pages 399-433.
    3. Arellano-Bover, Jaime & Saltiel, Fernando, 2021. "Differences in On-the-Job Learning across Firms," IZA Discussion Papers 14473, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Carl Sanders & Christopher Taber, 2012. "Life-Cycle Wage Growth and Heterogeneous Human Capital," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 399-425, July.
    5. Ross, Matthew B., 2017. "Routine-biased technical change: Panel evidence of task orientation and wage effects," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 198-214.
    6. Ljubica Nedelkoska & Dario Diodato & Frank Neffke, 2018. "Is Our Human Capital General Enough to Withstand the Current Wave of Technological Change?," CID Working Papers 93a, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    7. Britta Matthes & Bernhard Christoph & Florian Janik & Michael Ruland, 2014. "Collecting information on job tasks—an instrument to measure tasks required at the workplace in a multi-topic survey [Die Erfassung von Job-Tasks in persönlichen Befragungen. Ein neues Instrument z," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 47(4), pages 273-297, December.
    8. Ralph Stinebrickner & Todd Stinebrickner & Paul Sullivan, 2019. "Beauty, Job Tasks, and Wages: A New Conclusion about Employer Taste-Based Discrimination," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(4), pages 602-615, October.
    9. Ross, Matthew, 2014. "Skill Biased Technical Change: Wage Effects from a Panel of Occupational Task Measures," MPRA Paper 63732, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 18 Apr 2015.
    10. David J. Deming, 2017. "The Growing Importance of Social Skills in the Labor Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(4), pages 1593-1640.
    11. Michael J. Böhm & Hans-Martin von Gaudecker & Felix Schran, 2024. "Occupation Growth, Skill Prices, and Wage Inequality," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(1), pages 201-243.
    12. Simon Eisele & Martin R. Schneider, 2020. "What Do Unions Do to Work Design? Computer Use, Union Presence, and Tayloristic Jobs in Britain," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(4), pages 604-626, October.
    13. Eggenberger, Christian & Rinawi, Miriam & Backes-Gellner, Uschi, 2018. "Occupational specificity: A new measurement based on training curricula and its effect on labor market outcomes," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 97-107.
    14. Autor, David H., 2013. "The "task approach" to labor markets : an overview," Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 46(3), pages 185-199.
    15. Guido Matias Cortes, 2016. "Where Have the Middle-Wage Workers Gone? A Study of Polarization Using Panel Data," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(1), pages 63-105.
    16. Kracke, Nancy & Reichelt, Malte & Vicari, Basha, 2017. "Wage losses due to overqualification: The role of formal degrees and occupational skills," IAB-Discussion Paper 201710, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    17. Ian Nicole A. Generalao, 2019. "Mapping tasks to occupations using Philippine data," UP School of Economics Discussion Papers 201904, University of the Philippines School of Economics.
    18. David Deming & Lisa B. Kahn, 2018. "Skill Requirements across Firms and Labor Markets: Evidence from Job Postings for Professionals," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(S1), pages 337-369.
    19. Yashiv, Eran, 2020. "Moving from a Poor Economy to a Rich One: The Contradictory Roles of Technology and Job Tasks," IZA Discussion Papers 13131, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Cindy M. Cunningham & Robert D. Mohr, 2019. "Using tools to distinguish general and occupation-specific skills," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 53(1), pages 1-11, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    online labor markets; platforms; gig economy; career theory; freelancing; labor specialization; human capital;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J44 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Professional Labor Markets and Occupations
    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:zbw:zewdip:20090. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zemande.html .

    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.