How skills acquired in vocational education and training (VET) affect wages and employment is not clear. We develop and estimate a search and matching model for workers with a VET degree. Workers differ in interpersonal, cognitive and manual skills, while firms require and value different...

This paper presents an analysis of labour market dynamics, in particular of flows in the labour market and how they interact and affect the evolution of unemployment rates and participation rates, the two main indicators of labour market performance. Our analysis has two special features. First,...

It has been argued that vocational education facilitates the school-to-work transition but reduces later adaptability to changing environments. Using the recent international PIAAC data, we confirm such a trade-off over the life-cycle in a difference-in-differences model that compares employment...

Occupational restructuring means that worker skills need to be updated, broadened or totally renewed. This report focuses on persons whose employment prospects have been particularly challenged by occupational restructuring: persons who in the mid-1990s were employed in occupations characterized...

In this report, we follow up the situation of individuals having re-entered the labour market with the help of a so-called job bank. The follow-up period extends over the next two years after their job-bank-mediated transition into the open labour market. We present two different sets of results...

In this report, we re-assess the role of so-called job banks as mediators into the open labour market but also as employers of unemployed job-seekers. The focus is primarily on the unemployed who became job bank clients during 2013. We follow up the labour market situation of these individuals...

This study examines the employment status of workers who left Nokia during the period 2009-2014. The results reveal that the workers were quite successful in finding employment. According to the latest available data, more than three-quarters of these individuals found a new job, while the share...

This paper considers the role of flexicurity when jobs must be reallocated from a declining, traditional sector to a skill intensive expanding sector. Workers initially decide whether to acquire qualifications for skill-intensive tasks or to accept a less demanding traditional job. Unemployment...

The amount of work done in the economy has been subject to a lot of debate in Finland recently. Unemployment is considered a major problem. On the other hand, extending annual working time receives little support. In fact, a widely held view is that one should reduce the working time of the...

This report studies working time and competitiveness. The first part of the report compares working time in Finland to other European countries using working time data from Eurostat and provides a review of the economics literature on working time and employment. The second part of the report...