Trends in worker displacement penalties in Japan: 1991-2005

We examine the period from 1991 to 2005 to document the effects of a changing Japanese labor market on the consequences of job change for workers, focusing on the change in the wages between initial and subsequent employment. During this period, job changes caused by separations from the initial job that were involuntary from the workers point of view increased and the wage losses from job change grew. As well, while age-earnings profiles for continuously employed career workers remained the same in 1993 and 2003, the age-earnings profiles of newly hired workers grew flatter during the period. Hence, an erosion in the earnings of newly hired workers relative to incumbent workers occurred and the effect was to increase the job change wage losses for older workers. Thus, while the losses from changing jobs grew in general, they also grew more age-related over the sample period.