Job creation and job destruction in the EU agriculture

This is the first paper to study job creation and destruction in EU agriculture. We disaggregate employment patterns and job flows into detailed intra-sectoral labour adjustment dynamics based on farm level panel observations from 1989-2006. We find that: (1) job creation and destruction rates in EU agriculture are high compared to other sectors; (2) there are important differences in job creation and destruction rates between different member states; (3) this can be attributed to differing initial farm structures: member states with small average farm sizes display higher job creation and destruction rates than those with larger average farm sizes.