What is Occupational Labour Mobility?

Occupational labour mobility is the ability of workers to switch their career fields so as to discover satisfactory employment or to meet their labour requirements. When the conditions enable high degrees of occupational labour mobility, it helps maintain substantial productivity and employment levels.

Governments may also offer occupational retraining to assist workers to get the required skills and quicken the process.

Explaining Occupational Labour Mobility

Labour mobility is the ease whereat workers have the right to leave one job to get the other. However, if the occupational labour mobility, for a worker, is limited, he might not be able to take a new career in the times of termination or layoffs. This could be true for those workers who have special skills that can only be used in certain situations. For instance, if you are trained to repair a type of machinery that only works in the Manufacturing Industry, you may face a tough time trying to find employment anywhere outside of the industry.

Also, if an experienced worker, after acquiring a significant salary, tries to switch the career, he would have to face a substantial financial alteration. The reason behind this is because alternate jobs that he may perform might not make the best out of his skills.

For instance, a physician might find works, in another country, as a taxi driver in case there is no medical position. Such situations can lead to professionals and workers taking lower pay that doesn’t reflect their work experience and years of hard work.

The easiness with which employees get to move from one job in an industry to another in a different industry comprehends how quickly an Economy get to develop. For instance, if there was no occupational mobility, people would be sticking to the same old jobs, unable to specialize in any field.

Ease of occupation mobility limitations can do a variety of things. To begin with, it can increase the labour supply in specific industries. Lesser restrictions may cause labourers to get an easier time stepping into different industries, which means the labour demand will be met readily. And then, if it becomes seamless for labourers to get into a certain industry, the labour supply will increase for a demand, which will decrease the wage rate until there is equilibrium.