Labour mobility is the percentage of workers in an industry that change jobs in a given year, either with an existing employer or at a new employer (ABS Job Mobility, Australia, cat. no. 6209.0).

Low or falling labour mobility can indicate less competition, because where workers switch firms less often, it suggests that:

• firms may not need to compete as fiercely to attract workers by offering better pay or conditions;
• workers may have fewer options about where to work; or
• there may be barriers to workers' movement, such as extensive use of non-compete clauses in contracts (Majeed et al., 2025).

However, labour mobility can sometimes be low even in industries with strong competition, for example in industries where firm-specific skills are important so that workers with longer tenure tend to be more productive (OECD, 2021).