Temporary jobs: Port of entry, Trap, or just Unobserved Heterogeneity?

Abstract

We use a 1998 - 2004 sample from WHIP in order to study the labor market transitions of young entrants. We consider seven labor market tates: permanent and temporary employment, apprenticeship, training pogrammes, self employment, quasi subordinate jobs and unemployment. After controlling for individual ?xed e¤ects in a dynamic multinomial logit framework, we ?nd that heterogeneity partially explains workers' sorting among the contracts. State dependence exists in all the labor market states, but CFLs, apprenticeship and temporary jobs also represent a port of entry towards permanent employment. Length: 22 pagestemporary jobs, port of entry, state dependence