A preliminary look at some labour market dynamics in Australia, Japan and North America / R.G. Gregory and W.F. Foster.

Abstract

We begin to provide answers to the following questions: What are the similarities and differences in the extent and pattern of labour market mobility in the US, Canada, Japan and Australia? Can the very low unemployment rate in Japan relative to North America and Australia be explained in part by a pattern of labour market flows between employment, unanployment and outside the labour force which is different from the pattern in the Australian and North American labour market? Is the length of job tenure in Japan that different from the length of job tenure in other countries? We find that job tenure and labour market mobility in Ncrth America and Australia is almost identical. Mobility in Japan is low although after five years in the job the expected job tenure is much the same in each country. The largest differences in mobility relate to short tenure workers. In Japan unanployment is kept low because there is a very low propensity to leave jobs - frictional unemployment is therefore anall - and upon leaving and entering employment most of the flows are between employment and outside the labour force rather than through the unemployment pool. Show more