IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecorec/v102y2026is1p3-38.html

Declining Job Mobility in Australia: The Role of Demographic Change

Author

Listed:
  • Christopher Carter
  • Peter Siminski

Abstract

Job mobility – the rate at which workers change employers – is seen as an indicator of economic dynamism, tied to wage growth and productivity. ‘Official’ figures suggest job mobility has fallen by around 50 per cent over 50 years in Australia. This has generated much interest, but the drivers are not well understood. We begin by showing that official figures overstate job mobility in early years. The actual decline is smaller and is concentrated in the post‐GFC era. Next, we show that demographic change explains all of the pre‐GFC decline in job mobility, but almost none of the post‐GFC decline. The post‐GFC decline seems to be driven by reduced opportunities for younger workers, combined with a strong increase in post‐COVID job satisfaction.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher Carter & Peter Siminski, 2026. "Declining Job Mobility in Australia: The Role of Demographic Change," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 102(S1), pages 3-38, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecorec:v:102:y:2026:i:s1:p:3-38
    DOI: 10.1111/1475-4932.70060
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-4932.70060
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1475-4932.70060?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ecorec:v:102:y:2026:i:s1:p:3-38. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/esausea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.