Sectoral Structure, Qualification Characteristics and Patterns of Labour Mobility

The paper has two main objectives. First, to investigate whether workers show significant differences in labour opportunities. Second, to test the hypothesis that tertiarisation has important effects explaining it. The hypotheses are: (1) tertiarisation has relevant effects on the structure of labour demand by skills; (2) the labour opportunities of workers can be influenced by the skills developed in their previous jobs and their concordance between sectoral changes. From a methodological point of view, the approach implies a study of labour transition data of workers, sectoral change and its qualification implications. In order to research the previous argument, the authors analyse labour mobility within European countries. Therefore, data used in the paper come from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP). All descriptive analyses have been carried out and the results from dynamic logit panel data model suggest that the relation of workers to tertiarisation and its implications – approximated by their previous labour situation (sector and skill) – are significant, explaining differences observed in labour transitions and its characteristics.