No longer qualified? Changes in the supply and demand for skills within occupations

Arbeitspapier

Using a novel database of 159 million online job postings, we examine changes in employer skill requirements for education and specific skillsets between 2007 and 2017. We find that upskilling - in terms of increasing demands for bachelor's degrees as well as software skills - was a persistent trend among high-skill occupations, but either a temporary or non-existent phenomenon among middle-skill and low-skill occupations. We also find evidence that persistent upskilling in the high-skill sector contributed to greater occupational mismatch that remained elevated during the recovery from the Great Recession. In contrast, labor market mismatch had largely dissipated within the low-skill and middle-skill sectors by 2017.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Working Papers ; No. 20-3

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis ; Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity ; Labor Demand ; Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity ; Labor Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs
• Subject: labor demand ; skills ; vacancies ; unemployment ; firm behavior

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Burke, Mary A. ; Sasser, Alicia ; Sadighi, Shahriar ; Sederberg, Rachel B. ; Taska, Bledi
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
• (where): Boston, MA
• (when): 2020

Further information

• DOI: doi:10.29412/res.wp.2020.03
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/227938
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET