WORKER DISPLACEMENT AND JOB-SEARCH - A REGIONAL-ANALYSIS OF STRUCTURAL IMPEDIMENTS TO REEMPLOYMENT

This study investigates the human, and in turn the regional consequences of industrial restructuring in the United States. Our methodology presumes that labor market outcomes of displaced workers can provide considerable information on the structural properties of local labor markets, and subsequently upon the capacity of such areas/regions to reemploy additional workers. The examination follows two steps. In the first, a multivariate model of reemployment likelihood is developed and subsequently estimated. Separate equations are obtained for various regions of the country, a disaggregation that permits one to identify how postdisplacement reemployment, and its determinants, vary systematically across space. In the second step, the above estimates are decomposed into two elements, one of which is reflective of regional structural conditions. Based upon this methodology and estimates obtained in the first step, regions of the country are compared as;to magnitude of their structural economic problems, and thus as to their capacity to gainfully reemploy additional workers displaced by plant closure or relocation.