Employment Patterns in OECD Countries
Stephen Nickell and Luca Nunziata
This paper studies the dynamics of labour demand and the determinants of employment rates across the OECD. We find: (i) labour demand adjusts less rapidly when employment protection is more strict and union density is higher; (ii) there is no evidence that overall job turnover is influenced by employment protection; (iii) union density and coverage are negatively related to employment/population ratios, although this effect can be entirely offset by coordination; (iv) strict employment protection laws are strongly associated with lower employment rates for women and young people but have no impact on the rates for prime age men.
March 2000 Paper Number CEPDP0448