Job Mobility of Public and Private Sector Workers

Job mobility is one of the key indexes of labor market flexibility. This article presents the results of studies on public/private sector mobility and is based on data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey-Higher School of Economics (RLMS-HSE) from 2004 to 2013. It uses binary choice and Heckman models to analyze factors related to choosing and switching sectors. The findings show that the flow between sectors is relatively small, but that job changes in the public sector usually mean a move to the private sector. Moreover, a significant difference in wages leads the most qualified public sector workers to take jobs in the private sector. The only way to attract workers to the public sector is through nonmaterial incentives, which means that more passive, risk-averse workers choose to work in the public sector.