Unemployment and Age-based Labor Market Segmentation

We analyze age-specific labor market dynamics in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia over the period 2009-2012. We document a marginalized status of young workers aged 16-24, whose risk of job loss followed by unemployment is two to three times higher than that of prime-age workers (35-49). Further more, unemployed workers aged 50-61 face relatively the lowest probability of finding a job, at rates 30-50% lower than prime-age unemployed workers. These results are qualitatively in line with those established for the reference economy of the UK. Finally, we find that fluctuations in age-specific unemployment rates in all three countries are mainly driven by variations in outflow rates from unemployment rather than by variations in inflow rates into unemployment. In contrast, in the UK, the fluctuations in all age-specific unemployment rates, are decisively affected by variations in inflow rates into unemployment.