ABSTRACT

While re-employment opportunities for redundant workers have been a much-debated topic in economic geography, the characteristics of these new employments and the medium-run effect of major lay-offs constitute a less explored field. The present paper investigates skill matching between the pre-redundancy job and the employment workers have five years after redundancy by studying the distance and direction of their labour market trajectories. By following 670 manufacturing workers made redundant in major layoffs in 2003, the present paper connects patterns of career mobility and underemployment to possible frictions connected to spatial and industrial mobility. The results indicate that moving some distance from the initial point of departure is correlated with upward mobility. This especially concerns moving to a related industry in the same region or moving to a new region, but within the same industry. Moving too great a distance, however, increases the risk of downward mobility. Moving to unrelated industries in general, but also to related industries in new regions, is associated with a higher risk of facing underemployment in the medium run. In conclusion, the longer-run labour market trajectories, in relation to both distance and direction, need to be addressed if we are to assess the outcome of redundancies.

摘要

尽管冗余工人的再就业机会在经济地理学中一直是一个备受争议的话题，但这些新工作的特征和主要裁员的中期影响构成了一个鲜为人知的领域。本文通过研究人员的距离和方向，研究了裁员前的工作与裁员五年后的技能匹配情况。他们的劳动力市场轨迹。通过跟踪2003年在主要裁员中裁员的670名制造业工人，本文将职业流动性和就业不足的模式与与空间流动性和产业流动性相关的可能的摩擦联系起来。结果表明，从初始出发点移开一段距离与向上移动性相关。这尤其涉及到移至同一地区的相关行业或移至同一行业内的新区域。但是，移动距离过长会增加向下移动的风险。一般而言，转向不相关的行业，也转向新地区的相关行业，在中期内面临着就业不足的风险较高。总之，相对于两者而言，长期的劳动力市场轨迹距离和方向，如果我们要评估冗余的结果，则需要解决。