oa Winnaars en verliezers op de arbeidsmarkt 2000-2005

Winners and losers on the labour market 2000-2005: Reorganization in the recession

In this paper, we discuss the shifts in the occupational structure of employment in the Dutch economy between 2000 and 2005. These years can be characterized as a recession period with a severe decrease of employment in several occupations. Among these 'occupational losers' are several management occupations, which were the booming occupations in the previous decades. This reflects the flattening of organizations during the recession years at the beginning of the 21st century. However, other occupations highly benefited from these reorganizations. This particularly holds for organization experts. A shift-share analysis shows that between 2000 and 2005 the increase in the average level of education of the working population was much higher than in the second half of the 1990s. This is due to a strong increase of the substitution effect within occupations. Higher-skilled workers benefited most from the upgrading of skill demands. This upgrading was particularly high in agricultural, technical, economic-administrative and health care occupations.