The borders of inter-firm mobility for ICT employees in Italy

Abstract

Workers with low skill transferability risk longer unemployment spells between jobs and face higher probability of poorer working conditions. Those risks are particularly strong for professionals in the area of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), due to fast changing technologies and processes. The empirical analysis provided in this paper tests the borders of skill transferability for ICT employees by assessing the return to employer mobility for firm changers in the same industry and firm changers moving outside the ICT industry compared to firm stayers. The 1990-2004 empirical analysis is based on WHIP, a longitudinal dataset including a representative sample of employment relationships in Italy. The results show that firm changers benefit from a wage premium, provided that they remain in the ICT industry