The economics professors’ paper provides the first direct evidence for a broad class of economic models hypothesizing that mismatched workers are more likely to search on-the-job.
Mark Kurt, associate professor of economics and director of the Elon Business Dual Degree program, and Steve DeLoach, chair and professor of economics, recently published a paper in the Journal of Labor Research.
The paper builds on the authors’ previous work on the search behavior of the unemployed. One important implication of on-the-job search is that it helps explain why the official unemployment rate declines so slowly following recessions. For example, when firms began to hire after the Great Recession, employed workers joined the unemployed in competing for new positions. This behavior of employed workers not only increases the competition among workers for new jobs, but also increases job turnover.
The Journal of Labor Research provides an outlet for original research on all aspects of behavior affecting labor market outcomes, as well as a forum for both empirical and theoretical research on the U.S. and international labor markets, and labor/employment issues.