Skill gap

Do serious skill gaps exist?

Yes

• MIT Tech review: The Hunt for Qualified Workers
• Technical Change, Inequality, and the Labor Market
• Employers Aren’t Just Whining – the “Skills Gap” Is Real by James Bessen

  The critics cite economic evidence to argue that there are no major shortages of skilled workers. But a closer look shows that their evidence is mostly irrelevant. The issue is confusing because the skills required to work with new technologies are hard to measure. They are even harder to manage.

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  Why are skills sometimes hard to measure and to manage? Because new technologies frequently require specific new skills that schools don’t teach and that labor markets don’t supply. Since information technologies have radically changed much work over the last couple of decades, employers have had persistent difficulty finding workers who can make the most of these new technologies.

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  For one thing, education does not measure technical skills. A graphic designer with a bachelor’s degree does not necessarily have the skills to work on a web development team. Some economists argue that there is no shortage of employees with the basic skills in reading, writing and math to meet the requirements of today’s jobs. But those aren’t the skills in short supply.

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  For example, the average designer, who typically does print design, does not have good web and mobile platform skills. Not surprisingly, the wages of the average designer have not gone up. However, those designers who have acquired the critical skills, often by teaching themselves on the job, command six figure salaries or $90 to$100 per hour rates as freelancers.

NO

• Jobs and Skills and Zombies by Paul Krugman
• Is There Really a Shortage of Skilled Workers? by Heidi Shierholz

• Skill Gaps, Skill Shortages and Skill Mismatches: Evidence for the US by Peter Cappelli

  There is very little evidence consistent with the complaints about skills and a wide range of evidence suggesting that they are not true. Indeed, a reasonable conclusion is that over-education remains the persistent and even growing situation of the US labor force with respect to skills.

• HBR: The Myth of the Skills Gap by Andrew Weaver

  • Skill Demands and Mismatch in U.S. Manufacturing

    The survey is the first, to their knowledge, to directly measure concrete employer skill demands and hiring experiences in a nationally representative survey at the industry level. The findings indicate that demand for higher-level skills is generally modest, and that three-quarters of manufacturing establishments do not show signs of hiring difficulties.