This study reveals the longer term consequences of redundancy, shown to include discontinuous employment, deskilling and significant movement down the earnings distribution. Using evidence from the British Household Panel Survey, it is shown that craft and low-skilled occupations experienced the major share of redundancies in the period 1991-95. Workers made redundant are less likely to work in future years and are more likely to experience significant downward movements in their occupational position and earnings. Work-related training is received by a good proportion of ex-redundant workers who regained employment during the period studied, but no evidence was found to support the hypothesis that the experience of training may protect them from the negative consequences of redundancy.
restructuring; reskilling; redundancy; labour market
