Moving (within and across) spatial labour markets in times of COVID-19: evidence from Facebook mobility data on Italian labour market areas

This article aims at investigating the interplay between the local spread of COVID-19 and the patterns of individual mobility. Conceptually, we connect the debate on the resilience to the perturbation caused by COVID-19 with the literature on spatial labour markets. By looking at very granular flows of Facebook users moving within and across Italian labour market areas (LMAs), we analyse whether their heterogeneous internal mobility has had a significant impact on excess mortality, thus testing whether, and under which circumstances, LMAs have actually behaved as self-containing local systems or have rather exported/imported people (and possibly) infections to/from other labour markets. We further extend the analysis by exploring how individual mobility plays different roles depending on the typology of LMAs considered. Specifically, we focus on LMAs hosting industrial districts, which are characterised by a thicker local labour market and denser business and social interactions, as well as LMAs with a high presence of “essential sectors†, i.e. activities not affected by the COVID-19 containment measures taken by the Italian government at the onset of the crisis.