Secondary Workers and the Acquisition of Negative Human Capital

Frequent job-changing by secondary workers in a rural labor force is found to be consistent with the human capital logic, even though negative human capital attributes are knowingly acquired in the process. The present value of future income streams from a "job-changing" strategy exceeds that from a "staying" strategy if the planning horizon for wood products work is four years or less, which is not an unrealistic length for this particular labor force.