Job-related mobility and plant performance in Sweden

This paper uses a Swedish micro-dataset containing 2,696,909 hires during the period 2002-2006 to assess the impact of job-related mobility on plant-level performance. The analysis classifies new recruits according to their work experience and level of formal qualification, as well as by the region of origin and of destination. New hires are divided into graduates and experienced workers and between high- and low-educated. The results point towards the importance of acknowledging both the experience and the skills of new recruits. The greatest benefits are related to hiring new workers from outside the region where the plant is located. The analysis also stresses the importance of geography, with plants in metropolitan regions gaining the most from labour mobility, while plants in smaller, more peripheral regions getting virtually no benefits from hiring new workers.