The frequency of job loss among workers in late career has risen disproportionately in recent years. The effects of job loss on these workers are potentially severe: their earnings capacity, savings, and retirement expectations are likely to be dramatically affected and they may take substantially longer to be re-employed. However, despite these reasons for heightened concern, relatively little is known about the economic consequences of late career job loss among recent cohorts of workers. This paper presents findings from an ongoing research project using the Health and Retirement Study that focuses on the economic impacts of late career job loss on employment and retirement patterns, as well as on earnings and assets.(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

This article considers whether two commonly used sources of information on employer tenure, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the Current Population Survey, yield systematically different trends in employer tenure. Little evidence of a discrepancy between the data sets in the 1980s or 1990s is found when comparable samples, variable definitions, and time frames are used. Neither data set shows a significant trend in the share of workers with 1 year or less of tenure, while both data sets show an increase in the fraction of men with less than 10 years of tenure starting in the late 1980s.