A Note on US Worker Turnover

Abstract

The length of new employment relationships is of first-order importance for a number of questions in recent macro-labour research. We investigate it using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation for the US from 1996 onwards, and document that above two-fifths of newly employed workers fall into non-employment within a year. We also find that the transition rate from employment to non-employment within the first year varies significantly for different groups of the population, increases with the duration of the previous non-employment spell, exhibits an acyclical or weakly procyclical pattern and a much higher volatility than the unemployment rate.