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Academic Literature
Skills Gap – Wages do not reflect skills shortages research finds
Concern is growing in advanced economies, and in particular in the UK, about the ‘skills gap’: the ‘growing gulf between the skills workers possess today and the skills businesses say they need’ (Economist Intelligence Unit 2014). The concerns are often focused on shortages of workers with skills in the science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) … Continue reading
US – Labor market fluidity is declining research finds
We document a clear downward trend in labor market fluidity that is common across a variety of measures of worker and job turnover. This trend dates to at least the early 1980s if not somewhat earlier. Next we pull together evidence on a variety of hypotheses that might explain this downward trend. It is only … Continue reading
Overeducated in the EU – Taking time to ensure that the job matches your skill set has a big pay‐off
Studies of skill mismatch tend to focus on one of two central measures (a) overskilling which describes the phenomena whereby workers are unable to use a range of their skills and abilities in their current job and (b) overeducation, which describes the phenomena whereby workers have acquired a level of schooling in excess of what … Continue reading
Canada – Canadian work experience increases entry earnings Stat Can finds
Immigration selection policies changed significantly during the 1990s and 2000s, at least in part to improve immigrant entry earnings. After the decline in both relative (to the Canadian-born) and absolute entry earnings during the 1980s and early 1990s, there was a strong desire to improve the economic outcomes of immigrants shortly after their landing. Changes … Continue reading
The Temporary Help Industry in US – 2 percent of average daily employment and accounted for 11 percent of net employment losses during the Great Recession
The temporary help industry, although small, plays a significant role in the macro economy, reflecting employers’ growing reliance on temporary help agencies to provide flexibility in meeting staffing needs. The temporary help industry accounts for about 2 percent of average daily employment in the U.S. economy but plays an outsized role in workforce adjustment during … Continue reading
Canada – Employer sponsorship and other forms of automatic saving may matter a great deal in helping more vulnerable groups save for their retirement.
A large literature in behavioural economics finds that households benefit from assistance with the challenging task of preparing financially for retirement. Workplace pension program characteristics such as default options or savings rate escalators tend to significantly increase contributions to these plans (Madrian and Shea 2001; Choi et al. 2004; Thaler and Benartzi 2004). Recent evidence … Continue reading
College Grads Underemployement in US – Lower for those with technically oriented and occupation-specific majors research finds
The image of a young newly minted college graduate working behind the counter of a hip coffee shop has become a hallmark of the plight of college graduates following the Great Recession. Indeed, although economic conditions steadily improved through the recovery, significant slack remained in the labor market, and many recent graduates were not finding jobs … Continue reading
Long-Term Impact of Mass Layoffs – As layoffs increase by 1%, total labour force shrinks by 0.15 percentage points
When 1% of a county’s labour force is laid off, the county’s total labour force shrinks by 0.15 percentage points within three years. Between 2001 and 2011, internal migration, take-up of disability insurance, and early retirement account for three-quarters of the decline in the labour force following a significant economic downturn, with internal migration accounting … Continue reading
Grads in Canada – Earnings increased for male in Engineering and for female Earnings increased for male postsecondary graduates in Engineering and for female in Health
In 2005, Canadian-born male and female bachelor’s degree holders aged 25 to 34 earned on average $65,400 and $46,500 (in 2012 dollars) in wages and salaries, respectively. This was more than $20,000 higher than the earnings received by their counterparts with only a high school diploma (Table 1 and Charts 1 and 2).Note 4 While … Continue reading
Grads in Canada – The impact of further studies
By field of study, the largest difference in the employment rate for university degree-holders who completed further studies compared with those who did not was 8.2 percentage points for those who first studied physical and life sciences and technologies (78.1% versus 69.9%). The second-largest difference was 6.7 percentage points for people who had a university degree in social and behavioural … Continue reading
Workplace Bullying – Consistently associated with reduced mental health a meta-analysis finds
Workplace bullying is consistently, and in a bi-directional manner, associated with reduced mental health. Based on a large pool of cross-sectional and longitudinal data, we conclude that workplace bullying is a significant predictor for subsequent mental health problems, including depressive-, anxiety-, and PTSD symptoms and other stress-related psychological complaints. By showing that mental health complaints … Continue reading
Immigrants in Canada – Language at landing is one of the most important variables in predicting earnings in the short term, but less as time past
While an extensive literature examines the association between immigrants’ characteristics and their earnings in Canada, there is a lack of knowledge regarding the relative importance of various human capital factors, such as language, work experience and education when predicting the earnings of economic immigrants. The decline in immigrant earnings since the 1980s, which was concentrated … Continue reading
US – The rightward shift in the Beveridge curve
One feature of how the labor market looks different from before the Great Recession is captured in the Beveridge curve relationship, as shown here (vacancy rate vs. unemployment rate): We’re interested in the Beveridge curve, in part because the relationship falls out of conventional Mortensen-Pissarides search models of the labor market. In that model, we … Continue reading
Resume – Job history as a signal of worker characteristics
Consider two workers who are known to be identical in almost every professionally relevant characteristic, such as education, experience and vocational training. The only relevant characteristic in which they may differ is how well each worker gets along with others and cooperates with directives from supervisors. As an employer, you care about these qualities, but … Continue reading
Unemployment benefits has a positive effect on the quality of jobs that recipients find research says
The generosity of unemployment insurance is often cited as a reason for long spells of joblessness. But this view neglects other important, and potentially positive, economic aspects of such programmes. Using Austrian data, this column presents evidence that unemployment insurance has a positive effect on the quality of jobs that recipients find. This can in … Continue reading
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