The Flow Approach to Labor Markets: New Data Sources and Micro-Macro Links

New data sources and products developed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of the Census highlight the fluid character of U.S. labor markets. Private-sector job creation and destruction rates average nearly 8% of employment per quarter. Worker flows in the form of hires and separations are more than twice as large. The data also underscore the lumpy nature of micro-level employment adjustments. More than two-thirds of job destruction occurs at establishments that shrink by more than 10% within the quarter, and more than one-fifth occurs at those that shut down. Our study also uncovers highly nonlinear relationships of worker flows to employment growth and job flows at the micro level. These micro relations interact with movements over time in the cross-sectional density of establishment growth rates to produce recurring cyclical patterns in aggregate labor market flows. Cyclical movements in the layoffs-separation ratio, for example, and the propensity of separated workers to become unemployed reflect distinct micro relations for quits and layoffs. A dominant role for the job-finding rate in accounting for unemployment movements in mild downturns and a bigger role for the job-loss rate in severe downturns reflect distinct micro relations for hires and layoffs.

The Establishment-Level Behavior of Vacancies and Hiring

This paper is the first to study vacancies, hires, and vacancy yields at the establishment level in the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, a large sample of U.S. employers. To interpret the data, we develop a simple model that identifies the flow of new vacancies and the job-filling rate for vacant positions. The fill rate moves counter to aggregate employment but rises steeply with employer growth rates in the cross section. It falls with employer size, rises with worker turnover rates, and varies by a factor of four across major industry groups. We also develop evidence that the employer-level hiring technology exhibits mild increasing returns in vacancies, and that employers rely heavily on other instruments, in addition to vacancies, as they vary hires. Building from our evidence and a generalized matching function, we construct a new index of recruiting intensity (per vacancy). Recruiting intensity partly explains the recent breakdown in the standard matching function, delivers a better-fitting empirical Beveridge Curve, and accounts for a large share of fluctuations in aggregate hires. Our evidence and analysis provide useful inputs for assessing, developing and calibrating theoretical models of search, matching and hiring in the labor market.

The establishment-level behavior of vacancies and hiring

The authors study vacancies, hires, and vacancy yields (success rate in generating hires) in the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, a large representative sample of U.S. employers. The authors also develop a simple framework that identifies the monthly flow of new vacancies and the job-filling rate for vacant positions, the employer counterpart to the job-finding rate for unemployed workers. The job-filling rate moves counter to employment at the aggregate level but rises steeply with employer growth rates in the cross section. It falls with employer size, rises with the worker turnover rate, and varies by a factor of four across major industry groups. The authors' analysis also indicates that more than 1 in 6 hires occur without benefit of a vacancy, as defined by JOLTS. These findings provide useful inputs for assessing, developing, and calibrating theoretical models of search, matching, and hiring in the labor market.Employment ; Labor market

Recruiting Intensity during and after the Great Recession: National and Industry Evidence

We measure job-filling rates and recruiting intensity per vacancy at the national and industry levels from January 2001 to September 2011 using data from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. Construction makes up less than 5 percent of employment but accounts for more than 40 percent of the large swings in the job-filling rate during and after the Great Recession. Leisure & Hospitality accounts for nearly a quarter of the large drop in recruiting intensity during the Great Recession. We show that industry-level movements in job-filling rates and recruiting intensity are at odds with the implications of the standard matching function in labor search theory but consistent with a generalized function that incorporates an important role for recruiting intensity per vacancy.

Labor Market Flows in the Cross Section and Over Time

Many theoretical models of labor market search imply a tight link between worker flows (hires and separations) and job gains and losses at the employer level. Partly motivated by these theories, we exploit establishment-level data from U.S. sources to study the relationship between worker flows and job flows in the cross section and over time. We document strong, highly nonlinear relationships of hiring, quit and layoff rates to employer growth in the cross section. Simple statistical models that capture these cross-sectional relationships greatly improve our ability to account for fluctuations in aggregate worker flows. We also evaluate how well various theoretical models and views fit the patterns in the data. Aggregate fluctuations in layoffs are well captured by micro specifications that impose a tight cross-sectional link between worker flows and job flows. Aggregate fluctuations in quits are not. Instead, quit rates rise and fall with booms and recessions across the distribution of establishment growth rates, but more so at shrinking employers. Finally, we use our preferred statistical models – in combination with data on the cross-sectional distribution of establishment growth rates – to construct synthetic JOLTS-type measures of hires, separations, quits and layoffs back to 1990.

Adjusted Estimates of Worker Flows and Job Openings in JOLTS

We develop and implement a method to improve estimates of worker flows and job openings based on the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS). Our method involves reweighting the cross-sectional density of employment growth rates in JOLTS to match the corresponding density in the comprehensive Business Employment Dynamics (BED) data. To motivate our work, we compare JOLTS to other data sources and document large discrepancies with respect to aggregate employment growth, the magnitude of worker flows, and the cross-sectional density of establishment growth rates. We also discuss issues related to JOLTS sample design and nonresponse corrections. Our adjusted statistics for hires and separations exceed the published statistics by about one-third. The adjusted layoff rate is more than 60 percent greater than the published layoff rate. Time-series properties are also affected. For example, hires exhibit more volatility than separations in the published statistics, but the reverse holds in the adjusted statistics. The impact of our adjustment methodology on estimated job openings is more modest, raising the vacancy rate by about 8 percent.

Business Volatility, Job Destruction, and Unemployment

Unemployment inflows fell from 4 percent of employment per month in the early 1980s to 2 percent or less by the mid 1990s and thereafter. U.S. data also show a secular decline in the job destruction rate and the volatility of firm-level employment growth rates. We interpret this decline as a decrease in the intensity of idiosyncratic labor demand shocks, a key parameter in search and matching models of unemployment. According to these models, a lower intensity of idiosyncratic shocks produces less job destruction, fewer workers flowing through the unemployment pool and less frictional unemployment. To evaluate the importance of this theoretical mechanism, we relate industry-level unemployment flows from 1977 to 2005 to industry-level indicators for the intensity of idiosyncratic shocks. Unlike previous research, we focus on the lower frequency relationship of job destruction and business volatility to unemployment flows. We find strong evidence that declines in the intensity of idiosyncratic labor demand shocks drove big declines in the incidence and rate of unemployment. This evidence implies that the unemployment rate has become much less sensitive to cyclical movements in the job-finding rate.