Regional disparities in gross job and worker flows

• Main Author: Petri Böckerman
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2000
• Subjects: Northern Finland
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.509.5058; http://www.petribockerman.fi/bockerman%26maliranta_reg_2001.pdf

The aim of this study is to characterize the structure and the evolution of Finnish regional labour markets in terms of gross job and worker flows using establish-ment-level data. There is no solid evidence that the gross job creation rate is on average lower in Eastern and Northern Finland. The rapid rise in regional un-employment disparities in the 1990s can be explained via the rise in the dispari-ties in the gross job destruction rates across regions during the great slump of the early 1990s. There are also distinct regional differences in the adjustment of labour demand at the establishment level. (JEL: J23, R23). it is fair to say that the continuous reallocation and the reorganisation of scarce resources cul-minates in the function of labour markets, where the reallocation of resources takes the form of gross job flows (i.e. job creation and destruction), and gross worker flows (i.e. hir-ings and separations of workers). This reorganisation view of labour markets underlines the fact that the pool of available jobs is not stagnant over time. Instead, the la-bour markets are subject to simultaneous job creation and destruction. There are two broad approaches to characterize this structural change in labour markets in terms of gross job and worker flows. The so-called excess job re-allocation provides a measure of structural change among the plants of the economy. In 1.