Skill Mismatch In Labor Markets

This volume contains original research articles which analyze the linkages between education and skills and the causes and consequences of different types of skill mismatch. The volume yields new insights regarding overeducation, underskilling, graduate jobs, wages returns to skills, aggregate productivity, job complexity and skill development.

This volume contains original research articles which analyze the linkages between education and skills and the causes and consequences of different types of skill mismatch. The volume yields new insights regarding overeducation, underskilling, graduate jobs, wages returns to skills, aggregate productivity, job complexity and skill development.

"This book covers a wide variety of topics related to economic modelling for sustainable and social development. It provides new insights into economic development in an era of global hyper competition, dwindling natural resources, and a growing global skills gap"--

Reviews research on levels and trends in the skills workers possess, the skills employers demand, and the evidence for skill shortage. Finds that the skills of American workers are not as weak nor are job requirements changing as rapidly as often claimed. Highlights the need for reliable and representative data on workforce competencies and skill requirements.

An examination of the conventional wisdom that the economy will face a labor shortage was done in three stages. First, the demand side of the labor market was analyzed. Changes in the skill requirements of jobs from 1973-86 were examined as were those changes anticipated by projections of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for 2000. The conclusion was that skill requirements would rise in the 1990s due to shifts in the occupational structure, but at a modest rate that was significantly less than that for 1973-86. Second, expected trends in labor supply--the quantity and quality of the future work force--were analyzed. Conclusions were that a general labor shortage would not occur simply because the labor force would grow slowly in the 1990s and the changing demographics of the work force would not necessarily produce a serious shortage of adequately skilled workers. A problem with labor force entrants would probably be that the educational system will not have provided an adequate basis for future technological innovation and productivity growth. Third, the study examined recent and expected trends in wages and incomes to assess whether future trends would remedy the labor market problems. The conclusion was that wages would continue their sluggish growth and possibly fall for large portions of the work force. The key policy implication was that the "supply push" approach would not produce desired improvements in labor market performance or productivity. (Appendixes include a description of the methodology, 28 endnotes, and a 52-item bibliography.) (YLB)

This open access book analyzes the main drivers that are influencing the dramatic evolution of work in Asia and the Pacific and identifies the implications for education and training in the region. It also assesses how education and training philosophies, curricula, and pedagogy can be reshaped to produce workers with the skills required to meet the emerging demands of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The book’s 40 articles cover a wide range of topics and reflect the diverse perspectives of the eminent policy makers, practitioners, and researchers who authored them. To maximize its potential impact, this Springer-Asian Development Bank co-publication has been made available as open access.

In Indonesia, the past two decades have been a time of great progress but also massive transformations and abrupt setbacks. In this context, this book reviews the main characteristics of - and trends in - demand for skills in Indonesia. It seeks to document the existence of a possible skills mismatch between employer demands and the available supply, the contribution of the education and training sector to this mismatch, and possible measures to improve the education and training system's responsiveness to what the labor market and the economy need. In today's job market in Indonesia, there appears to be a premium on theoretical and practical knowledge of the job. While skills do not appear to be yet among the most important constraints for the economy, the situation is different for larger more export-oriented manufacturing firms. Subjective assessments of difficulties of matching needs with available skills provide evidence that skills are becoming an issue overall in Indonesia. The widest gaps across professional profiles are for English and computer skills followed by thinking and behavioral skills. Theoretical and practical knowledge of the job are also considered to be weak. There are important gaps in creativity, computing and some technical skills for young workers. English remains the largest gap. Five general skill related priorities can be highlighted for Indonesia. First, the country needs to improve skill measurement to get a fuller understanding of skill needs and gaps. Second, it is urgent for Indonesia to address the still unsatisfactory quality and relevance of its formal education, including higher education. Third, the country needs to set-up multiple pathways for skill development. Fourth, the country needs to develop an integrated approach to tackle skill development for youth. Fifth, Indonesia should also tackle labor market constraints which affect the skill matching process.

"Several interdisciplinary studies highlight imperfect information as a possible explanation of skill mismatches, which in turn has implications for unemployment and informality rates. Despite information failures and their consequences, countries like Colombia (where informality and unemployment rates are high) lack a proper labour market information system to identify skill mismatches and employer skill requirements. One reason for this absence is the cost of collecting labour market data. Recently, the potential use of online job portals as a source of labour market information has gained the attention of researchers and policymakers, since these portals can provide quick and relatively low-cost data collection. As such, these portals could be of use for Colombia. However, debates continue about the efficacy of this use, particularly concerning the robustness of the collected data. This book implements a novel mixed-methods approach (such as web scraping, text mining, machine learning, etc.) to investigate to what extent a web-based model of skill mismatches can be developed for Colombia. The main contribution of this book is demonstrating that, with the proper techniques, job portals can be a robust source of labour market information. In doing so, it also contributes to current knowledge by developing a conceptual and methodological approach to identify skills, occupations, and skill mismatches using online job advertisements, which would otherwise be too complex to be collected and analysed via other means. By applying this novel methodology, this study provides new empirical data on the extent and nature of skill mismatches in Colombia for a considerable set of non-agricultural occupations in the urban and formal economy. Moreover, this information can be used as a complement to household surveys to monitor potential skill shortages. Thus, the findings are useful for policymakers, statisticians, and education and training providers, among others."

This thesis contains three chapters on skill mismatch in the labour market. Chapter 1 provides a theory of ex ante skill mismatch, which we define as a situation where firms create jobs that workers search for and accept, even though they do not make the most productive use of their skills. The core idea is that, in the presence of asymmetric information about workers' outside options, the value of on the job search is higher for workers employed in such jobs. The theory provides new insights into the returns to education as well as the impact of on the job search on labour market mismatch. It also provides an explanation for the declining fortunes of educated American workers in recent decades. Chapter 2 studies a competitive search equilibrium with exogenous skill mismatch, where educated workers apply to routine jobs only if they face a high cost searching for cognitive jobs. The purpose is to examine whether a simple model with exogenous mismatch can explain the adverse labour market outcomes of educated workers. Under a negative shock to routine jobs, the model fails to generate a fall in the employment rate together with a decline in the job-to-job transition rate. Compared to endogenous mismatch equilibrium, an equilibrium with exogenous mismatch does not incorporate the trade-o between job finding rates and wages when unemployed workers choose to search in different job sectors. The comparison suggests that understanding the mechanism of skill mismatch is essential to understanding the labour market outcomes of educated workers. Chapter 3 shows that displacement of high-school workers from routine jobs can be understood as the labour-market response to an adverse selection problem. The adverse selection problem arises because employment contracts do not systematically discriminate against education, even though over-qualified ed workers are relatively more likely to quit routine jobs. The labour market equilibrium distorts the labour market outcomes of high school graduates by in efficiently increasing their wage at the expense of higher unemployment rate, in order to separate them from overqualified ed college graduates. In addition, the labour market response to the adverse selection problem creates a demand for post-secondary vocational education, which is valuable because it acts as an entry barrier that prevents college graduates from using routine jobs as stepping-stones towards better jobs.