Organisational change and job separation in France: endure or escape?.

The aim of this paper is twofold: to highlight the relationship between the types of change affecting organisations and modes of job separation (economic redundancy, dismissal on personal grounds or resignation), and to cast light on the process that leads to job separation. It relies upon both quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative data come from a French matched employer-employee survey, the 2006 "Organisational Change and Computerisation" survey. The qualitative part draws on interviews with individuals who had left their firm. Our results show that job termination is most highly correlated with what the survey defines as "organisation change" alongside "financial restructuring". But they also show that it is quite impossible to disentangle, in such contexts, whether the termination is voluntary (resignation) or involuntary (dismissal). Termination appears in all cases as a way to "exit", i.e. to escape the degradation of working conditions and the loss of valuable job features.Dismissal, job separation, organisational change, working conditions.