Technological change, organizational change, and job turnover

This paper uses a German employer-employee matched panel data set to investigate the effect of organizational and technological changes on gross job and worker flows. The empirical results indicate that organizational change is skill-biased because it first and foremost reduces net employment growth rates of unskilled and medium-skilled workers via higher job destruction and separation rates, whereas the employment patterns of skilled workers are not affected significantly. New information technologies increase churning rates for skilled and highly skilled workers. Finally, most of the employment adjustment patterns associated with organizational and technological change are external. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.