Phase Transition in Labor Markets

Abstract

A phase transition in artificial labor markets is numerically observed. Under several key assumptions and from the view point of statistical physics, we construct the energy function of each company and write the probability that the company obtains applicants at each business year by a Gibbs-Boltzmann distribution. We clearly find that the system undergoes a phase transition from `good employment phase' to `poor employment phase' with spontaneous symmetry breaking when one controls the preference degree of ranking (company's profile). A possible microscopic account of the phenomenon is discussed.