WORKER MOBILITY IN THE U.S. ECONOMY

A study conducted as part of a project concerned with the increasing internationalization of the U.S. economy addressed three questions: (1) whether the rate of worker mobility kept pace with changing labor demand, and if not, what strategies might be used to increase it; (2) when faced with dislocation, whether workers responded by migrating and/or changing occupations; and (3) how adequate were existing federal policies for facilitating worker mobility. Findings indicated that even though economic changs were accelerating, worker mobility may have declined since the fil-st half of the 1970s. Three factors that contributed to the decline were limited earnings payoffs associated with geographic migration, rising housing costs, and increased labor force participation of married women. Displaced workers were much more likely to migrate than other workers. An analysis of government policies aimed at facilitating worker mobility led to three conclusions: (1) relocation assistance, although authorized by the Job Training Partnership Act and the Trade Adjustment Assistance Act was not extensively used; (2) increased emphasis on experimental designs to evaluate program options is needed to develop an effective mobility strategy; and (3) programs operated under differing administrative and planning guidelines and did not form a consistent strategy. (A table of contents for a longer report on which this summary is based is appended.) (YLB, Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can De made from the original document. kf