Jobpräferenzen und Arbeitsplatzwechsel

Abstract

Many previous studies try to discover job preferences through the direct questioning of employees. As there is doubt as to the validity of such studies for actual behaviour, this empirical examination offers a different approach based on representative German data. Employees who quit their job and find a new one compare the two jobs with respect to eight job characteristics: type of work, pay, chances of promotion, work load, commuting time, working hour regulations, fringe benefits and security against loss of job. It is argued that the observation of many improvements (few declines) for a certain attribute indicates a particular relevance and high preference for this attribute. The study shows that pay and type of work seem to be the important for employees. Differences across subgroups of employees with respect to individual characteristics such as sex and age are explored.