Job openings hit record high in July - USA Today

[Bill USA]

2. for a serious look at issue:"Unemployment & the “Skills Mismatch” Story: Overblown and Unpersuasive"

Unemployment and the “Skills Mismatch” Story: Overblown and Unpersuasive

The second theory—the skills mismatch hypothesis—has received greater scrutiny. Economists have examined the skill mix of workers laid off from shrinking industries and compared it with the mix of occupational skills needed in industries that are growing. The available research on this topic is a long way from definitive. For what it is worth, most credible studies do not find a bigger mismatch than what we saw in past recoveries. However, our information about the skills of job seekers is not detailed enough to know whether their qualifications equip them to fill new positions in expanding industries. In the past 10 years, manufacturing companies have cut their payrolls by 2.2 million workers. The manufacturing workers who lost their jobs and are seeking new ones may lack the specific skills needed by expanding companies, even if their former jobs were in occupations closely related to the occupations that are now growing.

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To an economist, the most accessible and persuasive evidence demonstrating a skills shortage should be found in wage data. If employers urgently need workers with skills in short supply, we expect them to offer higher pay to prospective new employees who possess the skills. When workers with crucial skills are offered better wages by expanding employers, they are in a strong position to demand better pay from their current employers, even if their own employer is not expanding. Current employers must match the wage offers of growing employers or risk losing their key employees.

Where is the evidence of soaring pay for workers whose skills are in short supply? We frequently read anecdotal reports informing us some employers find it tough to fill job openings. What is harder to find is support for the skills mismatch hypothesis in the wage data. Last week the BLS released its quarterly report on the pay of full-time wage and salary workers. The median full-time worker earned $782 a week in spring 2014 (see Charts 1 and 2). That wage was $6, or 0.8%, more than the median earnings received by workers one year ago. While other wage series show modestly faster gains in pay, there is little evidence wages or compensation are increasing much faster than 2% a year. Even though unemployment has declined, there are still 2.5 times as many active job seekers as there are job vacancies. At the same time, there are between 3 and 3½ million potential workers outside the labor force who would become job seekers if they believed it were easier to find a job. The excess of job seekers over job openings continues to limit wage gains, notwithstanding the complaints of businesses that cannot fill vacancies.

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It is cheap for employers to claim qualified workers are in short supply. It is a bit more expensive for them to do something to boost supply. Unless managers have forgotten everything they learned in Econ 101, they should recognize that one way to fill a vacancy is to offer qualified job seekers a compelling reason to take the job. Higher pay, better benefits, and more accommodating work hours are usually good reasons for job applicants to prefer one employment offer over another. When employers are unwilling to offer better compensation to fill their skill needs, it is reasonable to ask how urgently those skills are really needed.