Citation URL: http://www.urban.org/JuliaLane

In this paper we use a very large matched database on firms and employees to analyze the use of temporary agencies by low earners and its impact on their employment outcomes. Our results show that, while temp workers have lower earnings than others while working at these agencies, their subsequent earnings are often higher—but only if they manage to gain stable work with other employers. Furthermore, the positive effects seem mostly to occur because those working for temp agencies subsequently gain access to higher-wage firms, and they persist over time.

Corporate restructuring of the past decade has changed the fate of lower-skilled workers, but the exact nature of that fate—whether loss of long-term employment or of job ladders—is widely debated. Case studies and analysis of employment and industry data on jobs in the food industry, as part of a four-industry study (retail, finance, electronics manufacturing), find that industry consolidation and the shift of food preparation work out of food service providers (restaurants, and cafeterias in schools and businesses) to suppliers—in particular manufacturers—may create higher-quality jobs and more extensive job ladders. However, these improved jobs have lifted many opportunities beyond the reach of many lower-skilled workers in the industry. The findings suggest an explanation for the puzzle about why the media report individual firms downsizing while aggregate data exhibit no change in average job tenure and related measures: processes that dismantle job ladders in one set of businesses may create new jobs and opportunities elsewhere, averaging out to little change overall.

This paper takes a novel approach to measuring firm entry and exit, mergers, and acquisition, using information about the flows of clusters of workers across business units to identify longitudinal linkage relationships in longitudinal business data. In particular, we develop a set of criteria based on worker flows to identify changes in firm relationships. We demonstrate how this new data infrastructure and this cluster flow methodology can be used to better differentiate true firm entry/exit and simple changes in administrative identifiers. We explore the role of outsourcing in a variety of ways but in particular the outsourcing of workers to the temporary help industry.

This study examines the effect of employer characteristics, types of coworkers, and residential location in promoting the advancement of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients in the labor market. It is the first to use new, large integrated employer-employee data--with new measures of worker quality and firm pay premia--to examine labor market outcomes and provide evidence that proactive welfare agencies may use in decision making.

This paper discusses the critical need, in social sciences, for the development of a database infrastructure that captures the complex interactions among households and businesses at the micro level and characterizes the dynamics of the modern economy. The creation of such an infrastructure has posed a major challenge to national statistical institutes. Since most institutes collect, store, and disseminate data on the engines of economic growth--businesses and households--in twin data silos, proposals to integrate the two face technical, monetary, legal, and policy obstacles that go far beyond the norm of data collection activities. Recent efforts at the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) Program at the U.S. Census Bureau have finally made this critical data infrastructure achievable and accessible.

The mission of national statistical institutes is to collect and disseminate data. Decades ago, this meant producing books and reports primarily consisting of tabular data--designed to answer pre-defined questions. The increasing complexity of 21st century society, however, has put increasing pressure on such institutes to produce micro-data--designed to allow policy analysts and researchers to pose and answer questions of their own choosing. This paper discusses the value added from researcher access to micro-data, the potential costs, and suggests some approaches that might be taken by national statistical institutes to facilitate such access.

This paper investigates and evaluates the direct and indirect contribution of human capital to business productivity and shareholder value. The impact of human capital may occur in two ways: the specific knowledge of workers at businesses may directly increase business performance, or a skilled workforce may also indirectly act as a complement to improved technologies, business models or organizational practices. We use newly created firm-level measures of workforce human capital and productivity to examine links between those measures and the market value of the employing firm. The new human capital measures come from an integrated employer-employee data base under development at the US Census Bureau. We link these data to financial information from Compustat at the firm level, which provides measures of market value and tangible assets. The combination of these two sources permits examination of the link between human capital, productivity, and market value. There is a substantial positive relation between human capital and market value that is primarily related to the unmeasured personal characteristics of the employees, which are captured by the new measures.

This paper presents an analysis of workers who persistently have low earnings in the labor market over a period of three or more years. Some of these workers manage to escape from this low-earning status over subsequent years, while many do not. Using data from the Longitudinal Employer Household Dynamics (LEHD) program at the U.S. Census Bureau, the authors analyze the characteristics of persons and especially of their firms and jobs that enable some to improve their earnings status over time.

This paper examines within- and between-firm changes in human capital, technology, and productivity using a new comprehensive data source.

This paper examines establishment wage differentials using a new comprehensive data source.

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