Changes in job security and their causes: An empirical analysis for France, 1982-2002

摘要

In this paper, we analyze the changes in the lisks of involuntary job loss in France between 1982 and 2002. We find that these risks are higher in the 1990s than they were in the 1980s. We develop an econometric analysis to separate the effects of ins titutional changes from the effects of new technologies. Our estimates show that the rise in job loss rates is significantly more pronounced in industries that have the largest share of R&D workers and the largest rate of new technologies' users. These f indings suggest that technological changes contribute to decreasing the incentive to keep workers for long period of time and to increasing job insecurity.