Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to examine how occupational mobility varies over the business cycle and how selected factors contribute to occupational mobility in different stages of the business cycle. Design/methodology/approach -Using annual micro data from the Estonian Labour Force Survey (2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010) and implementing probit models with interaction terms, the paper investigates occupational mobility as a change of occupation in two successive years during recovery, boom and recession periods. Findings -The analysis indicates that occupational mobility is higher during the recovery and boom periods and lower during the recession stage. The demographic characteristics (gender, marital status, knowledge of local language) influence the probability for occupational change during the recovery stage of the business cycle. The position of employees in the occupational hierarchy is significant during the recovery and boom periods. Employees working in the public sector have a lower probability for occupational change compared with private sector employees during the recession. Training has a positive effect on occupational mobility during recession. Tenure reduces the probability of occupational mobility over the whole business cycle. Originality/value -The paper contributes to the literature by providing new results about the role of different factors of occupational mobility over the business cycle. This is among the few studies addressing the variation in the occupational mobility of employees from the public and private sectors. Interactions between the position of the employees in the occupational hierarchy and the ownership form of their employers and the economic sectors add to the understanding about the mechanism of occupational mobility over the business cycle stages.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to clarify whether the age-productivity curve is different for low-waged and high-waged employees. Design/methodology/approach Productivity growth is decomposed at the firm level into contributions by hired, separated and staying workers. Based on a matched employer-employee database of Estonian firms from 2006 to 2014 and considering the age as well as wages of employees, a panel data model with fixed effects is constructed to show the relative productivity of each cohort of employees. Findings High-waged employees appeared to be relatively more productive than low-waged employees and middle-aged were more productive than young or old employees. However, the productivity difference between young and old employees was not statistically significant. The age-productivity curve of high-waged employees appeared to be flatter than that of low-waged employees. Only in knowledge intensive services were the low-waged old employees statistically significantly less productive than high-waged old employees. In the manufacturing industry, the young were more productive than in services, in knowledge intensive services the old were less productive than in traditional services. Research limitations/implications The productivity of employees is only analysed for cohorts of employees. Practical implications Employers can be encouraged to hire older employees because old employees are shown to remain at least as productive as young employees. Originality/value The decomposition of labour productivity at the firm level is further developed, as the statistical difference between the productivity of different groups of employees is analysed.

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The purpose of this paper is to clarify whether domestic or foreign firms gained more from labour churning while adjusting to the Great Recession in Estonia. During times of high unemployment, all firms can raise their requirements for new employees, but in times of crisis foreign firms may have more resources available for restructuring. We analysed matched employee-employer data from Estonian firms from 2006 to 2013, and show that an increase in labour churning is related to a positive change in labour productivity during economic crisis. During boom years churning is related to a negative change in labour productivity. In both cases a slightly upward convex pattern can be noticed. Only in services during the crisis did foreign firms have a stronger positive relationship between labour churning and labour productivity changes than domestic firms. However, our analysis at the individual level does not confirm that during a crisis foreign firms hire more employees with characteristics that have been found to be related to productivity increases. We also show empirically that hiring employees who relatively often change jobs is negatively related to changes in labour productivity. In light of the worldwide virus-related crisis of 2020, this paper proves that economic downturns can be a good opportunity to restructure the pool of employees.