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Job stability and unemployment duration in manufacturing

By André Bernard

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In 2008, the four-year retention rate for workers across the economy as a whole was 56%. In other words, 56% of workers in 2004 still had the same job in 2008.

Meanwhile, in the manufacturing sector, the probability was 48%. This was the lowest proportion since 1992, and a significant drop from the 62% peak recorded in 1998. It is the widest gap ever recorded between manufacturing and non-manufacturing retention rates.

Manufacturing workers experienced significant drops in their stability rates regardless of tenure in the firm. For example, between 1998 and 2008, stability rates fell by 22% for workers with less than two years of tenure in their jobs and by 23% for workers with 20 years or more of tenure.

Ex-manufacturing workers tend to experience significantly longer unemployment spells than their counterparts from the non-manufacturing sector. In 2008, the average expected duration of 10.9 weeks for a new spell of unemployment for manufacturing workers was significantly higher than for non-manufacturing workers (9.7 weeks).