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9.6 Barriers to fluctuation

Every change of job means additional effort, both for the worker and for the company. This is especially true if you also change your profession. Expenses are the search for a new job, familiarization with the new job or retraining in a new job, work-related change of residence, double housekeeping with at least temporarily different work places of the family members

These expenses naturally represent barriers to fluctuation that must be overcome by those affected. Therefore, there must also be a sufficient incentive in the form of a noticeably higher income due to fluctuation.

These barriers to fluctuation have not yet been fully taken into account in my model, and further qualifications of the model are still possible. In some cases, however, they have already been taken into account by assuming that only a proportion of workers who could improve their jobs actually change their jobs. This is taken into account by the empirically introduced factor r1, the fluctuation rate.

Variations in the fluctuation rate r1 have also shown that the fluctuation barriers not only have a negative effect in that they inhibit the self-optimization of the labor market. They are also a necessary namely a system-stabilizing element of the labor market. If, for example, the fluctuation rate had the value 1, i.e. every worker who can improve its income would switch immediately, massive fluctuations would set in immediately with the slightest change in the labor market. That would lead to an instable system.

If the fluctuation barriers are better taken into account in the model in the future, a distinction must be made between two fundamentally different barriers. First of all, there are those who represent an inhibition threshold. Nothing happens here at first if there is a small reason for fluctuation. Only when the benefit of a fluctuation has exceeded a threshold value does the person concerned decide to switch. Second, there are those barriers where fluctuations still take place even with the smallest reasons for fluctuation, but the frequency of fluctuations increases with the increasing benefit that it brings. Respectively the time it takes to make a decision to fluctuate decreases with the increasing benefit that it brings. The fluctuation rate r1 introduced in the model partially takes into account fluctuation barriers of the second type mentioned here. Fluctuation barriers of the type mentioned first have not yet been taken into account in my model.

For the sake of completeness, it should be mentioned here that there are also phenomena that promote fluctuation. By changing jobs or professions, you acquire new skills and abilities and thus increase the value of your workforce. An occasional change also helps to exit a monotonous work routine and can thus cause a boost in motivation and more enjoyment at work. By various jobs you get to know your skills better and thus gain certainty whether you have made the right career choice or whether you should change again. I want to leave it open here whether and how these phenomena can or must be taken into account in future models.

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