Changing jobs?: change in the UK labour market and the role of worker mobility

This report is about the nature and speed of change in the UK's labour market, about how past periods of rapid change have happened, and about workers' experiences as they have lived through these changes. It is written with an eye to the upheaval we expect to see in the coming decade as the effects of Brexit, [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19, and the net zero transition work their way through the economy. It forms part of the Economy 2030 Inquiry, a joint research project between the Resolution Foundation and the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics.

This report is structured as follows: Section 2 sets out basic facts about how the sectoral and occupational composition of employment in the UK has changed over the past half century, and how the pace of change has varied over time; Section 3 expands on how this change has taken place, with a focus on the contribution of workers moving jobs and sectors; Section 4 looks at what these changes have meant for workers living through these changes, in terms of both the benefits (as some workers experience stronger pay growth by changing jobs and sector) and the costs (as others are subject to involuntary job separations and the negative consequences which flow from that); and Section 5 concludes.

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