Inter-industry labor flows

Frank Neffke, Anne Otto and Antje Weyh
Additional contact information
Anne Otto: Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg, Germany
Antje Weyh: Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg, Germany

No 201621, IAB-Discussion Paper from Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]

Abstract: "Labor flows across industries reallocate resources and diffuse knowledge among economic activities. However, surprisingly little is known about the structure of such inter-industry flows. How freely do workers switch jobs among industries? Between which pairs of industries do we observe such switches? Do different types of workers have different transition matrices? Do these matrices change over time? Using German social security data, we generate stylized facts about inter-industry labor mobility and explore its consequences. We find that workers switch industries along tight paths that link industries in a sparse network. This labor-flow network is relatively stable over time, similar for workers in different occupations and wage categories and independent of whether workers move locally or over larger distances. When using these networks to construct inter-industry relatedness measures they prove better predictors of local industry growth rates than co-location or input-based alternatives. However, because industries that exchange much labor typically do not have correlated growth paths, the sparseness of the labor-flow network does not necessarily prevent a smooth reallocation of workers from shrinking to growing industries. To facilitate future research, the inter-industry relatedness matrices we develop are made available as an online appendix to this paper." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Keywords: Bundesrepublik Deutschland; labour turnover; sektorale Verteilung; Arbeitskräftemobilität; Wirtschaftssektoren; Wirtschaftsstrukturwandel; Wirtschaftszweige; zwischenbetriebliche Mobilität; 1999-2008 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 J62 L14 O33 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 45 pages
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lma and nep-tid
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Published in/as: Journal of economic behavior & organization, Vol.142, No. October (2017), S. 275-292, doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2017.07.003

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https://doku.iab.de/discussionpapers/2016/dp2116.pdf

Related works:
Journal Article: Inter-industry labor flows (2017)
Working Paper: Inter-industry Labor Flows (2016)
Working Paper: Inter-industry labor flows (2016)
Working Paper: Inter-industry Labor Flows (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iab:iabdpa:201621

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