Internal Labor Markets, Plant Closings, and Retirement

Abstract

A “firm”—that is, a signature (firma), the name or title under which a company transacts business—is a legal entity organizing the complex processes by which conflicting interests and objectives of multiple, heterogeneous actors are maintained in a framework of contractual relations of exchange oriented by what the firm defines as a mutually agreed objective or output. The specific character of a firm is defined in part by an organizational technology that describes its output as a function of a structure of tasks or “jobs.” This job structure is the core of a firm’s internal division of labor and an internal labor market of renewable contracts. Workers flow into and out of the internal labor market via pathways established in some sort of employment system which regulates the pricing of labor time.