Employment transitions of young workers in Spain

In this article, we study the youth labour market in Spain. We focus on the transition from unemployment to employment and out of the labour force among two groups of workers: those who are looking for the first job, and workers who have already acquired sorne work experience. According to the Spanísh labour force survey (EPA), fírst job seekers represent more than fífty per cent of youth unemployment. By using matched files from the same data source we find that the employment transition rate among first job seekers is half of that for experienced young workers. Applying a multinomiallogit, we have analysed the factors that determine labour market transitions, and found significant differences between the two groups of job seekers. Inclusion of year durnmies in the regressions allowed to control for the effects of the economic cycle on transition probabilities