“Job Lock” - Just heard the term on an interview with Stephen Dubner coauthor of Freakanomics.
The first kind of job lock is if one has a pre-existing health condition and have health care through your employer. You can’t afford to change jobs because you are likely to end up without health insurance for the very condition for which you need it.
The second kind of job lock is when you have a pension program through your existing employer and you have not vested yet. For example, someone in the military that has 18 years of service and gets zero pension if he retires with less than 20 years of service.
A third example of job lock is a teacher or airline pilot and whose seniority and compensation is tied so closely to years of service with the same employer. If she changes jobs she goes to the end of the line, has the lowest seniority and the lowest pay.
Of course a fourth kind of job lock is when there is only one employer in town and because you can’t leave the area (say for family reasons) then the employee loses the practical option to change jobs.
A related example of lock is “state lock”. A woman loses her job in California but can’t move to another state with better job prospects without giving up her unemployment benefits. She stays in the state with the bad employment prospects rather than moving on to greener pastures.
But our economy is most dynamic and healthy when employees can easily move around – especially where they move to a company that will make the best use of her skills. Every individual changing jobs takes his experiences and ideas with him to the new opportunity. Fewer people get into ruts and there is a better mix of people, skills and experience.
In general the idea of far greater benefits and compensation for seniority creates job lock and is a bad idea. I have always thought that new employees should get four weeks of vacation and the longer they stay on the job the less vacation they get (say two weeks by the time they are 65). Just the opposite of how it is done today.
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