The mobility of displaced workers: How the local industry mix affects job search strategies

Frank Neffke, Anne Otto and César Hidalgo

No 1605, Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) from Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography

Abstract: Establishment closures leave many workers unemployed. Based on employment histories of 20 million German workers, we find that workers often cope with their displacement by moving to different regions and industries. However, which of these coping strategies is chosen depends on the local industry mix. A large local presence of predisplacement or related industries strongly reduces the rate at which workers leave the region. Moreover, our findings suggest that a large local presence of the predisplacement industry induces workers to shift search efforts toward this industry, reducing the spatial scope of search for jobs in alternative industries and vice versa.

Keywords: Displacement; local industry mix; agglomeration externalities; matching; mobility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 J61 J64 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-03, Revised 2016-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-geo, nep-lma and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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http://econ.geo.uu.nl/peeg/peeg1605.pdf Version March 2016 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The Mobility of Displaced Workers: How the Local Industry Mix Affects Job Search Strategies (2016)
Working Paper: The Mobility of Displaced Workers: How the Local Industry Mix Affects Job Search Strategies (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:egu:wpaper:1605

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