Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/166000 
Year of Publication: 
2015
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 2015:28
Publisher: 
Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy (IFAU), Uppsala
Abstract: 
We study how employee sickness absence affects worker-firm matching. We build on the idea that firms are sensitive to absence in jobs with few substitutes (unique positions). Consistent with this, we show that unique employees are less absent conditional on individual characteristics, establishment fixed effects and detailed occupational information. Half of this association is explained by sorting of low-absence workers into unique positions but sorting is less pronounced under imperfect information. Finally, job separations respond more to realized sickness absence in unique positions. The findings suggest that the cost of production disruptions is an important aspect of firms' hiring choices.
Subjects: 
sickness absence
production disruption
coworker substitutes
hiring strategies
JEL: 
J23
J24
L23
M51
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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