Characteristics And Determinants Of Internal Labor Mobility In Ukraine

Over the past 20 years Ukraine experienced fundamental structural changes due to transition to a market economy and integration with the world. Transition reforms accompanied by the collapse of traditional trade and production links with the other republics of the former USSR and Comecon countries entailed asymmetric effects on regions, reflecting an uneven distribution of winners and losers from transition. Geographical mobility of labor is one of the major mechanisms (alongside with capital mobility, wage and price flexibility, and institutional mechanisms for redistributing income across regions) in facilitating regional adjustment to idiosyncratic shocks.1 The ability of workers to move freely from one geographical location to another inside the borders of their country, in pursuing the same occupation or changing occupations, is of particular importance for efficient matching of labor demand and supply and reducing structural unemployment.