Job Displacement and Sectoral Mobility

Abstract: This paper combines two components of the US Current Population Survey to characterize the relationship between job displacement and sectoral mobility for long-tenured workers over the 1996–2019 period: (1) the cross-sectional Displaced Worker Survey and (2) the 16-month longitudinal design of the Basic Monthly Survey. While displacement negatively correlates with mobility over time, such job loss has a positive causal impact on mobility for displaced workers compared with similar non-displaced workers. Education and industry structure facilitate post-displacement industry switching, and several factors, including business cycles, affect whether the alternative to sectoral mobility is likely to be sameindustry employment or nonemployment.