Abstract: With the development of Internet, “Internet+” is playing an important role in the traditional employment pattern. This paper uses “the Dynamic Monitoring and Survey of National Mobile Population Health and Family Planning” data dated from 2013 to 2017 and the city-level data to study the impact of urban Internet development on labor mobility. The estimation results show that urban Internet development has significantly increased the immigration of labors, especially low-skilled labors. Meanwhile, the paper applies the instrumental variables to deal with potential endogeneity problems, and the results remain robust. We also examine the heterogeneity impact of individual background variables, and find that urban Internet development mainly affects the immigration of rural labors, and female and young labors’ decisions are more subject to Internet development than male and older laborers. The paper also analyzes the mechanisms of Internet development affecting labor mobility from three perspectives: information platform effect, spillover effect and psychological cost effect . The conclusions of this paper not only explain the migration pattern of labors in the background of “ Internet +”, but also provide some theoretical base for the formulation of urbanization policies.

Key words: urban internet development, labor mobility, information platform effect, spillover effect, psychological cost effect