The term skill mismatch is very broad and can relate to many forms of labour market friction, including vertical mismatch, skill gaps, skill shortages, field of study (horizontal) mismatch and skill obsolescence. In this paper we provide a clear overview of each concept and discuss the...

Skills are widely regarded as being necessary for boosting productivity, stimulating innovation, and creating new jobs, while skill mismatches are often cited as being responsible for a lack of dynamism in the labor market. However, heavy investments in technical and vocational training programs...

This paper provides precise figures on the incidence and wage penalties of mismatching in Germany. We use the BIBB/BAuA Employment Survey 2006 to compute two different measures of person-to-job matching. A first measure indicates an educational (mis)match, i.e., whether a worker’s attained...

Based on unique data from the second wave of the Cedefop European skills and jobs survey (ESJS2), this study examines the drivers of labour shortages in European labour markets. Detailed information on foundation, digital, manual, and interpersonal job-skill requirements in European labour...

This paper examines the effect of information and communication technologies (ICT) on the demand for workers in Switzerland. We compare the hypotheses that an increase in ICT leads to upskilling or job polarization and investigate their implications for countries where vocational education and...

The COVID-19 pandemic had a severe impact on the Umbrian economy, and despite recovery of labour demand, the region faces challenges related to digitalisation, tight labour markets, and volatile demand for low-skilled jobs. To address these issues, the OECD and the Umbrian regional agency for...