What's Holding Down Wages? Maybe The Lower Rate of Job-to-Job Transitions

Although the unemployment rate has fallen by nearly 5 percentage points since the Great Recession, wages have not grown much. One reason for sluggish wage growth, according to an analysis appearing in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's Liberty Street Economics blog, is the low rate of job-to-job transitions—workers who leave one job and immediately take another without experiencing a spell of nonemployment. Job-to-job transition workers typically are moving up the job ladder, finding new jobs with higher pay. Unfortunately, the job-to-job transition rate has yet to recover from the Great Recession.

Using data from the Survey of Consumer Expectations, economists from the New York Fed analyzed changes in the wages of job-to-job transition workers and workers who experienced a period of nonemployment before their current job...

Job-to-job transition workers
Current wage: $27.28
Starting wage at current job: $20.09
Ending wage at previous job: $18.79

Period of nonemployment workers
Current wage: $18.31
Starting wage at current job: $14.61
Ending wage at previous job: $17.92

Although both types of workers had similar wages at the end of their previous job, the job-to-job transition workers had a higher starting wage at their current job and a much higher current wage. Because of the lower rate of job-to-job transitions, conclude the researchers, fewer workers are moving up the job ladder. That may be suppressing wage growth.

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Liberty Street Economics, Searching for Higher Wages