The Effects of Decarbonisation on Wages: Are Highly Exposed Workers among the Losers in Structural Change?

However, an empirical analysis based on the Sample of Integrated Labour Market and Occupational Biographies (SIAB) shows that this has not yet had a negative impact on the wages of those workers most directly involved. In the base year, the average daily wages of employees particularly exposed to the decarbonisation process were generally lower than in less affected sectors of the economy, regardless of whether they were still working in the same company in the following year or had moved to another. However, those particularly exposed workers who changed employers and had been out of work for more than 60 days between jobs actually received a slightly better daily wage over time than non-exposed employees with comparable periods of unemployment. This outcome contributed to the fact that over the five-year period from 2014 to 2019 the pay gap between workers who changed companies after a similar medium-range period of unemployment and the control group, who remained in their old company or prior to their position at the time of observation had been unemployed for no more than 60 days, narrowed by 0.025 log or 2.5 percentage points. While in 2014, the former still earned 0.256 log points less than the latter, in 2019 the difference had fallen to 0.231 log points. A cross-sectional analysis of individual years shows that in neither 2014 nor 2019 did exposure to decarbonisation in the original company in itself provide a significant explanation for the wage differences between those who changed jobs after a medium period of unemployment and the corresponding control groups in the year after a move.