ABSTRACT
With fewer young people entering public service, public employers and the corresponding trade unions aim at signaling that they offer attractive working conditions. However, in the struggle for attractive conditions, labor market conflicts occur between public employers and public sector unions when bargains fail. According to signaling theory, such conflicts could serve as negative signals and thus decrease attraction to the profession. We investigate the signaling effects of two large-scale labor market conflicts in Denmark, a nurse strike and a teacher lockout, on applications to the respective nursing and teacher education programs. For both conflicts, we employ a synthetic control design to estimate that each conflict resulted in 17%–23% fewer first-priority applications. The findings suggest that labor market conflicts function as negative signals that decrease attraction to the given career and highlight that there are hidden costs to labor market conflicts for policymakers, public employers, and public sector unions.
OPSUMMERING
Færre unge søger en karriere indenfor offentlig velfærd, hvorfor offentlige arbejdsgivere samt fagforeninger søger at signalere, at de tilbyder attraktive arbejdsvilkår. Imidlertid kan kampen om arbejdsvilkår føre til arbejdsmarkedskonflikter, når forhandlingerne bryder sammen. Ifølge signalteori kan sådanne konflikter fungere som negative signaler, der mindsker professionens attraktivitet. Vi undersøger effekten af lærerlockouten i 2013 og sygeplejerskestrejken i 2021 på ansøgninger til hhv. lærer- og sygeplejerskeuddannelserne. Gennem et syntetisk kontrol-design estimerer vi, at hver konflikt resulterede i 17%–23% færre førsteprioritetsansøgninger i året efter konflikten. Resultaterne viser, at der er omkostninger ved arbejdsmarkedskonflikter, der kan mindske attraktionen ved en given karriere og bidrage til at færre uddanner sig indenfor professionen.