Internal and external factors that influence human resource planning: demographic

change

Changes in labor mobility

Definition:
● Occupational mobility of labor: the extent to which workers are willing and able to move
to different jobs requiring different skills.
● Geographical mobility of labor: extant to which workers are willing and able to move the
geographical region to take up new jobs

High occupational mobility of labor helps a country achieve economic efficiency. A mobile
workforce means that if jobs are lost in one industry or region, workers are willing and able to
move to other jobs and/or other occupations. This helps to keep structural unemployment low

In developed economies, labor tends to be relatively immobile because:

● high levels of homeownership mean that workers are reluctant to pay the cost in time
and money of arranging a house sale and purchase in another region
● high-skill levels in one occupation may mean that workers are not equipped to deal with
machines, processes, and technologies in other industries and occupations.

In emerging market countries, despite strong family or ethnic ties to one area, mobility tends to
be higher because:
● homeownership is low
● low skill levels mean that workers can undertake low-skilled jobs in many different
industries.

However, a high degree of geographical mobility, especially between rural and urban areas,
can lead to overcrowding and very poor living conditions in towns and cities.

Many governments pursue policies to attempt to increase labor mobility. These include:
● relocation grants for key public sector workers
● job centres and other government offices to advertise job vacancies nationally
● training and retraining programmes for the unemployed.