The recruitment and promotion of workers in a large Indian factory were examined in the context of two models of labor mobility: a horizontal model wherein people maintain their relative rank when they move from the traditional to the industrial sector, and the reverse mobility model wherein people reverse their relative rank upon moving. Regression analysis of the data showed that the reverse mobility model characterized the early employees while the horizontal mobility model characterized those hired later. The findings suggest that the chaotic relations between wages and skill level in newly industrializing countries may not result from market conditions or from particularistic or paternalistic norms but from responses which management makes to technological growth, union conflicts, and governmental regulations.