The Mobility of Labour (Cambridge (CIE) A Level Economics): Revision Note

What is a factor affecting the occupational mobility of labour?

Answer: A

Option A is correct - education and training directly affects occupational mobility because workers with broader skills and qualifications find it easier to move between different jobs and industries

Worked solution

• Option B is the trap - immigration controls affect geographical mobility of labour by restricting cross-border movement; students who confuse the two forms of mobility may select this

• Option C is incorrect - the price of housing affects geographical mobility because high house prices in growing regions deter workers from relocating; it has no direct effect on a worker's ability to switch between occupations

• Option D is incorrect - transport infrastructure affects geographical mobility by widening the range of accessible jobs through commuting; it is not a factor in occupational change

Detroit and the immobility trap

The context

Detroit was America's fourth-largest city in 1950 with 1.85 million residents, built around the "Big Three" automakers (Ford, GM, Chrysler). From the 1970s, auto production shifted to lower-cost US states and to Mexico. By 2010, Detroit's unemployment reached 24.9%

The mobility problem

• Geographical immobility - low house values meant homeowners could not sell and relocate; remaining residents were disproportionately poorer and unable to afford moves

• Occupational immobility - specialised assembly-line skills had little application in growing service industries; older auto workers found retraining difficult

• Hysteresis effect - long-term unemployment eroded skills and employability over decades

Outcomes

• Population fell 61% from 1950 to 2010 - those who could move did; those who could not were trapped

• By 2014, around 30% of residential buildings stood vacant or derelict

• Detroit filed the largest US municipal bankruptcy in history (2013) with $18 billion in debt

• Recovery from 2015 has been uneven - downtown revival but many neighbourhoods still struggling

Key lesson

When workers cannot move between locations or occupations, a single-industry shock produces decades of structural unemployment and permanent regional decline.

Always distinguish the two forms of mobility clearly - geographical mobility concerns location, occupational mobility concerns the type of work.

Past paper MCQs frequently ask for a single factor affecting one form specifically, so don't mix the factor lists in your answer.

For evaluation questions, link low mobility to structural unemployment and to the natural rate of unemployment - this shows the connection between mobility and the wider labour market.

Mobility is also a common evaluation point in policy questions - the effectiveness of supply-side policies often depends on whether workers can actually move to new jobs.