Youth employment decline and the structural change of skill

Abstract

Labor market prospects for youth have deteriorated significantly in many OECD countries over recent decades. While the extent and consequences of falling youth employment are commonly studied, attempts at understanding its causes have been much more limited. The present paper attempts to fill this explanatory gap. We suggest that the secular decline in youth employment can be accounted for by the structural change of skill. This process of structural change has two interrelated components: (a) one part where skill supply (individual educational attainment) and skill demand (educational requirements of jobs) grow together in what can be called matched upgrading and (b) another part where excess skill supply leads to mismatch and crowding-out. These components of skill growth have commonly been treated separately and incompletely in the literature. We build on both of them in developing our account of why the labor market for youth has weakened. Using data on 10 European countries from the EU Labor Force Surveys over the period 1998 to 2015, we estimate associations between the structural change of skill and youth employment decline. The main conclusion is that both matched skill upgrading and overeducation are strongly and negatively linked to young people's employment chances.

Determining Unemployment Factors Among Job Seeking Youth in the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia

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“…Generally, job shifts are caused by individuals seeking to find a position that fits their skills or expertise (Dorsett and Lucchino, 2015). According to Tåhlin and Westerman (2020), differences in educational categories are often seen as indicators of productive capacity, thus determining where individuals are in line with job applicants. Records of data for access to resources and economics are crucial to ensure that both current unemployment and work experience at university are recognized by employers for reference (Roberts and Zhen, 2017).…”

Stratification of Youth Employment and Departure Abroad with the Purpose of Work: Kazakhstan and Neighboring Countries

“…In particular, in studies related to international migration, stratification calculations are most often based on the share of the population in the regions characterized by the largest number of international (external) migrants, or the share of households in the regions where there is a stable upward trend in the proportion of international migrants 2 . In different strata samples, the stratification method also makes it possible to use variable-based and most appropriate sampling tools and procedures (Berezina et al, 2020;Sorbello, 2018;Tåhlin & Westerman, 2020;Teymoori et al, 2016).…”

Skill structure and labor market integration of immigrants in Europe

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“…Hence, the educational composition will gradually shift upwards, both generally and especially within the low-skill sector, with each generation of labor market entrants. As a consequence, the availability of low-skill jobs for less resourceful individuals, who are particularly dependent on such work because they cannot compete for more skilled jobs, will continue to decline, even if the actual share of low-skill jobs would stop falling (Tåhlin and Westerman 2020).…”