Journal of the Korean Geographical Society ISSN:1225-6633(Print) 대한지리학회지

The purpose of this study is to identify the characteristics of job flows linked to the shipbuilding crisis and to analyze the patterns of labor mobility as an adjustment mechanism of job flows in Geoje city, South Korea. Labor mobility was analyzed by dividing it into inter-economic activity status mobility, inter-industry mobility, and geographical mobility. As a result of the analysis, the crisis in the shipbuilding industry caused changes in the local labor market led by job destruction of existing businesses, and job flows in the shipbuilding industry affected on job flows in other industries after a couple of years. In this situation, what significantly worked as the adjustment mechanism of job flows in Geoje was the geographical mobility migrating out of the city and the economic activity mobility turned employment into unemployment and inactivity-employment but not inter-industry mobility and geographical mobility traveling to near commuting areas. This study suggests that Geoje city government and shipbuilding businesses, which have been experiencing difficulties in finding shipbuilding workers in accordance with the recent recovery of shipbuilding orders, need to understand the fundamental characteristics and problems of the shipbuilding labor market in order to avoid facing the same crisis in terms of employment in another upcoming recession.