Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Research in Business, Management and Economics
Year: 2024
DOI:
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Structural Change, Job Loss and Worker Mobility
Jemina Kotila, Jaakko Simonen, Philip McCann
ABSTRACT:
At the beginning of the millennium, the Oulu region in Northern Finland was home to one of the most significant technology clusters in the country. In its prime years in the early 2000s, the high-tech sector of the region employed nearly 14,000 workers, with most of the workers representing the manufacturing industries. However, the high-tech sector of the region went through a sudden structural change in 2008–2013, and especially the electronics industry suffered a dramatic decline: its employment dropped from almost 6,000 in 2008 to less than 3,500 in 2013 causing significant turbulence in the local labor markets. Approximately 3,500 employees in the electronics industry lost their jobs during 2009–2014 and were forced to adapt through industrial and regional mobility. We provide a longitudinal analysis of the adaptation processes within and across regions and industries using exceptionally comprehensive, high-quality microdata FOLK from Finland. FOLK start from the 1980s and include virtually all individuals living in Finland, offering a unique possibility to investigate individual labor market outcomes, adaptation processes, and career paths in the long run. The majority of re-employed workers remained in the Oulu region right after the redundancy, and this share only increased over time. An equal share of the workers in the Oulu region initially found jobs within high-tech services and outside the high-tech sector, but later the share back in high-tech manufacturing grew. Workers who left the Oulu region were more likely to enter industries outside the high-tech sector in the short and long run.
keywords: adaptation; career path; displacement; labor mobility; shock