  This paper studies the extent to which the cyclicality of occupational
mobility shapes that of aggregate unemployment and its duration distribution.
We document the relation between workers' occupational mobility and
unemployment duration over the long run and business cycle. To interpret this
evidence, we develop a multi-sector business cycle model with heterogenous
agents. The model is quantitatively consistent with several important features
of the US labor market: procyclical gross and countercyclical net occupational
mobility, the large volatility of unemployment and the cyclical properties of
the unemployment duration distribution, among many others. Our analysis shows
that occupational mobility due to workers; changing career prospects, and not
occupation-wide differences, interacts with aggregate conditions to drive the
fluctuations of the unemployment duration distribution and the aggregate
unemployment rate.
