A prominent labour market feature in recent
decades has been the increase in abstract and service jobs, while the
demand for routine work has declined. This article examines whether the
components of Type A behaviour predict workers' selection into
non-routine abstract, non-routine service and routine jobs.

Building on the work by Barrick et al.
(2013), this article first presents how the theory of purposeful work
behaviour can be used to explain how individuals with different levels
of Type A components sort into abstract, service and routine jobs. Then,
using longitudinal data, it examines whether the components of Type A
behaviour predict occupational sorting. Estimations were performed based
on the linear regression method.

The results show that the Type A dimension
“leadership” was associated with a higher level of abstract and service
job tasks in occupation. High eagerness-energy and responsibility were
also positively linked with occupation's level of abstract tasks. These
results suggest that workers sort into jobs that allow them to pursue
higher-order implicit goals.

Job market polarisation towards low-routine
jobs has had a pervasive influence on the labour market during the past
few decades. Based on high-quality data that combine prime working-age
register information on occupational attainment with information about
personality characteristics, the findings contribute to our knowledge of
how personality characteristics contribute to occupational sorting in
terms of this important job aspect.