Firm heterogeneity and the accessibility of manufacturing firms to labour markets

•The accessibility of firms to labour markets is calculated from a microeconomic perspective.•Estimation of impedance functions that takes into account the characteristics of workers, firms and their neighbourhood.•Accessibility to labour markets depends on geographic location as well as the characteristics of firms and workers.

In this paper, we propose a measure of geographic accessibility of firms to labour markets. This measure is computed from the microeconomic perspective, avoiding ex ante imposition of administrative boundaries and including the individual characteristics of firms and workers along with the geographical environment and the urban structure of territories through the estimation of particular impedance functions. Computation is done using microdata on more than 60,000 Spanish manufacturing firms and over a million workers' commutes across the full road transport infrastructure network (urban and intercity). We estimate impedance functions that incorporate the specific characteristics of firms and workers. Results show notable accessibility differences across firms due not just to their geographic location but also to their intrinsic industry characteristics and the strategies that they follow.