Intra-occupational Mobility

Mobility within the same family of occupations is called intra-occupational mobility and occurs when there is a similarity of job duties which can be applied in a new industry or to a job with a different focus. n example of movement within a family of occupations is provided in the table Career Path in Public Relations.

In another case, knowledge of the variety of job titles encompassed in an occupational family enabled a high school student to broaden her options considerably. Interested in graphic design, she originally imagined her choices to be in an advertising agency or graphic design studio. chat with a few graduates and human resource people demonstrated how graphic designers worked their way into these areas: architectural rendering, editorial illustration, book or album cover design, credit panels for videos and TV, medical illustrator and animated computer graphics.

Inter-occupational Mobility

What about movement outside an occupational family group? How easy is it? It depends on the fields and the transferable skills that were developed in the first part of the career. Moving outside the occupational family is called inter-occupational mobility.

The police officer who opened a chain of donut shops developed excellent communication skills dealing with the community as a law enforcement officer. He also had superior record-keeping skills, accurate and detailed, which translated into bookkeeping and stock-keeping abilities. He had developed the capacity to read people and predict their needs C a helpful skill in serving customers and getting the most out of staff. Investigative skills transferred to the capability to search out the best supply sources.

All these competencies plus other social and economic factors enabled this man to make a successful inter-occupational transition.

Further examples of inter- and intra-occupational mobility are described in a trucking industry report entitled Canadian Trucking Industry - Human Resource Challenges and Opportunities.

Between 1974 and 1987, truck drivers on the prairies were most likely to have moved into trucking from another occupation, compared to drivers elsewhere in Canada. bout a third of the newly hired drivers came from other occupations. In contrast, occupational mobility among truck drivers was lowest in Quebec. Certain occupations stand out as sources of truck drivers: construction workers, heavy equipment operators and material handling workers. The economic base in a region predicts some of the source occupations. For example, logging workers in British Columbia move into trucking jobs and vice versa. Similarly, product fabrication, assembly and repair workers in Ontario are both a source and a subsequent occupation for drivers (Steering Committee of the Canadian Trucking Industry, 1990, p. 48).

The sources of worker supply vary for many occupations, and it is helpful for the counsellor to be aware of the different paths that are possible. Persons with a strong desire to be involved in the excitement and bustle of the retail business, who know they do not want to settle down in one store to sell a specific product, could look for employment in a shopping mall and get there by one of the routes listed in the following textbox.