Die Beschäftigung von Un- und Angelernten : eine Analyse mit dem Linked Employer-Employee Datensatz des IAB (Employment of unskilled and semi-skilled workers * an analysis based on the IAB Linked Employer-Employee data set)

"To analyse the demand for unskilled and semi-skilled labour from 1993 till 1997, this article uses data of the IAB’s new Linked Employer-Employee data set (LIAB), which combines the IAB establishment panel with the historic data file of the employment statistics. The unskilled and semi-skilled workers are identified according to a job-oriented concept. The analyses confirm the postulated relationship between technological progress (as measured by the technical state of the equipment as well as by investment in IT) and a smaller proportion of unskilled and semi-skilled workers in companies. In contrast, a negative correlation between international interdependence (approximated by the export quota) and the demand for unskilled and semi-skilled workers could only partly be ascertained. Cross-sectional as well as longitudinal regressions show a negative relationship between the proportion of unskilled and semi-skilled workers in an establishment and the establishment’s average wage for unskilled and semi-skilled workers. For example, the estimated parameter from an OLS estimate implies that companies with a five per cent lower average wage for unskilled and semi-skilled workers have a one per cent higher proportion of unskilled and semi-skilled workers in their overall workforce. This therefore supports the thesis that one of the reasons for the increase in the unemployment rate of unskilled and semi-skilled workers is a too rigid wage structure which does not balance out the demand problems of unskilled and semi-skilled workers caused by technological progress." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))