Data are used from the 1984–2016 Displaced Workers Surveys (DWS) to investigate the incidence and consequences of job loss, 1981–2015. These data show a record high rate of job loss in the Great Recession, with serious employment consequences for job losers, including very low rates of re-employment and difficulty finding full-time employment. The average reduction in weekly earnings for job losers making a full-time–full-time transition are relatively small, with a substantial minority reporting earning more on their new job than on the lost job. Most of the cost of job loss comes from difficulty finding new full-time employment.

I examine the extent to which workers who lose jobs obtain work in alternative employment arrangements, including temporary work and independent contracting, and obtain voluntary or involuntary part‐time work. I find that job losers are significantly more likely than nonlosers to be in both temporary jobs (including on‐call work and contract work) and involuntarily part‐time jobs. I also find evidence that temporary and involuntary part‐time jobs are part of a transitional process subsequent to job loss leading to regular full‐time employment.

I use a large sample of jobs from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to examine job mobility patterns and to evaluate theories of interfirm worker mobility There are three main findings. First, the monthly hazard of job ending is not monotonically decreasing in tenure as most earlier work using annual data has found, but it increases to a maximum at 3 months and declines thereafter. Second, mobility is strongly positively related to the frequency of job change prior to the start of the job. Finally, job change in the most recent year prior to the start of the job is more strongly related than earlier job change to mobility on the current job.

The dramatic decline in unionization over the last decade is investigated in the context of a supply/demand model of union status determination using data from surveys of workers conducted in 1977 and 1984 along with data from the National Labor Relations Board on representation elections. It is concluded that the decline in unionization since 1977 is accounted for largely by (1) an increase in employer resistance to unionization, probably due to increased product market competitiveness and (2) a decrease in demand for union representation by nonunion workers due to an increase in the satisfaction of nonunion workers with their jobs and a decline in nonunion workers' beliefs that unions are able to improve wages and working conditions.

It is a well-known fact that the extent of unionization is less in states with right-to-work (RTW) laws. A framework is developed for determining whether RTW laws actually cause a decrease in the extent of unionization or whether they simply mirror preexisting tastes of workers against unions. A set of empirical tests is proposed that can distinguish between these explanations based on differences between RTW and non-RTW states in the demand for union representation, the supply of union jobs relative to that demand, and the observed union/nonunion wage differential. These tests are implemented using disaggregated data from the Quality of Employment Survey and the Current Population Survey, and a pattern is found that is consistent with the hypothesis that RTW laws simply mirror preexisting preferences against union representation.

We use a résumé audit study to investigate the role of employment and unemployment histories in callbacks to job applications. We find that applicants with 52 weeks of unemployment have a lower callback rate than those with shorter spells. There is no relationship, however, between spell length and callback among applicants with spells of 24 weeks or less. We also find that both younger and older applicants have a lower callback probability than prime-aged applicants. Finally, we find that applicants who are employed at the time of application have a lower callback rate than do unemployed applicants.