Labour Mobility:

Labor mobility consists of changes in the location of workers both across physical space (geographic mobility) and across a set of jobs (occupational mobility). Geographic mobility can be further subdivided into short-distance and long-distance moves, as well as into voluntary and coerced migration. Occupational mobility can be lateral (within a broad class of jobs similar in socioeconomic status) or vertical (from one job to a better or worse job). The availability of large, nationally-representative longitudinal surveys in the late twentieth century has made it possible to measure the extent of mobility in all these dimensions, and how they are related, in several developed economies. The extent of labor mobility through history has been enhanced by work conducted since the 1970s in which the careers of individual workers are reconstructed by locating them in censuses and census-like enumerations (city directories, tax lists, population registers) at successive dates. At the aggregate level, labor mobility conveys important economic benefits. The reallocation of workers across regions permits the exploitation of complementary resources as they are discovered in new places, while reallocation across sectors makes possible the use of new technologies and the growth of new industries. At the individual level, mobility allows for improvements in the economic circumstances of those whose skills or aspirations are a poor match for the job or location in which they find themselves. In the case of the EU, experiences, academic studies, the existence of barriers to mobility within the EU and the economic determinants of migration all indicate a moderate potential for increased migrant flows. The magnitude of cross-border labor flow in the medium to long run will most likely be largely a function of the demand for migrants and the speed at which the EU-8 catches up economically with the EU-15. If broad-based economic growth and social development continues in the EU-8, labor migration will most likely decrease. In addition, faster population ageing in the EU-8 tends towards dampening migration flow from the new Member States in the medium term.