Regional Labour Market Adjustment and the Movements of People: Directions for Future Work

Abstract

This paper summarises work that is under way in the Treasury 10 investigate the link between internal migration and regional labour market adjustment. We are currently working on a scoping document to assist in focusing our on-going work. This larger document will contain a review of relevant international and New Zealand literature, and will outline proposals for future research. The current paper outlines the motivation and scope of our enquiry, and discusses the three key questions that we plan to pursue. The first question examines whether migration helps or hinders regional labour market adjustment. The second question investigates how important migration is as a regional labour marker adjustment mechanism. The final question looks at who is moving and whether it matters for regional labour market adjustment.