Should I Learn or Should I Turn? Implications of Job Mobility for Subsequent Learning at Work

Abstract

Abstract Work learning is the skills and the knowledge that is generated from work practices and in exchange of information at work. While there are good reasons to fear that frequent job changers do not learn thoroughly at work, it is also conceivable that the experience of many types of jobs instead yields greater learning. Despite this issue’s significance for on-going discussions in research and policy, thorough analyses of it are surprisingly sparse. In this study, we test whether job mobility is positively or negatively associated with subsequent work learning using data from two Swedish representative datasets (LNU and PIAAC). In order to substantiate both claims, we utilize a wide array of research on human capital, job matching, labor market segmentation and learning motivation. We analyze a broad set of indicators of work learning and show that job mobility in general is associated with greater total subsequent learning than is job stability.