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Labor market and recruitment >> Update >> News

02/03/10

Increasing mobility on the global labor market


Rotterdam, 2 March 2010 - Local labor markets are globalizing, resulting in one global labor market. In 2006 a survey showed that 61 percent of the people faced positive attitudes towards international mobility (The International Recruitment Manual, 2006). Three years later, in 2009, this has increased by five percent to 64 percent of the people with positive feelings about being mobile on the global labor market. This is a result from the Global Talent Mobility Research, executed by Intelligence Group and The Network in July and August 2009, including 66.019 respondents from over 40 different countries.
It can be concluded that the overall trend on the labor market is that an increasing amount of people has positive feelings towards international labor market mobility. The question is: How can this be explained?

GDP affects willingness to be mobile

One relationship which was uncovered shows that the better the economic situation in a country, the more people in that country face positive attitudes towards being mobile on the global labor market. The average change in GDP in the third quarter of 2009 towards the in the research included countries was equal to -3.88 percent, with an average amount of people willing to work abroad of 64 percent. The better (or less worse) the economic change in a country, the more people face positive attitudes. Economic recovery is expected to happen in 2010. Therefore it can be expected that the amount of people willing to work abroad will even further increase in the upcoming year.

Figure 1 Relationship between change in GDP and willingness to work abroad

Relationship between age and willingness to work abroad

Source: Global Talent Mobility Research, July-August 2009

Peaks around the trend line can be explained by multiple reasons. One of them relates to the scores of countries on the worldwide ‘happiness-index', as measured by the New Economics Foundation. For instance Egypt has a very high score on this ranking, resulting in a lower than expected willingness to work abroad, probably affected by the fact that Egypt is a very pleasant country to live. Estonia on the other hand scores low on the ‘happiness-ranking'. Apparently Estonia is a less pleasant country to live, resulting in a higher amount of people willing to work abroad.

Do you want to know more?

The increased willingness to be mobile on the global labor market and other trends which will have major impacts on the labor market, are discussed in the white paper ‘Get ready for the international recruitment rally'. This paper also discusses five steps that companies must keep in mind in order to win this rally.
Are you interested in these steps or do you want to know more about the trends? Click here to download the white paper.

More information

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