GRADUATE UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE FACE OF SKILLS SHORTAGES: A LABOUR MARKET PARADOX1

Analysts agree that South Africa's unemployment is structural in the sense that the unemployed generally possess lower skills than what is required by the economy. In the context of increasing demand for skilled workers due to technological changes and the need to become globally more competitive, graduates would be expected to find employment without difficulty. However, against expectations unemployment has been increasing among young people with tertiary qualifications since 1995. This paper investigates the nature of this phenomenon. Evidence suggests that learners are inadequately prepared for both tertiary studies and entry into the labour market. Lack of, or inadequate career guidance means that they do not choose fields of study and types of qualifications with good employment prospects. In addition, lack of soft skills and workplace experience mean that employers are reluctant to employ graduates, preferring more experienced people instead.     

Overeducation and undereducation in Taiwan

This study analyzes the incidence of overeducation and undereducation and their effects on wages utilizing the data sets for the “Taiwan Social Change Survey” in 1997 and 2002. Our main conclusions are as follows. First of all, the rate of return on excess years of schooling is positive but smaller than that in relation to the required education. The rate of return on the years of deficit schooling is negative, but that the penalty is smaller than in the case of the required education. Secondly, the self-assessed overeducated workers tend to be pessimistic given their inferior promotion history, although the returns on their surplus education seem to be rather sound. By contrast, if overeducation is defined according to the method of means of realized matches, it provides a more favorable picture for the overeducated in terms of mobility history. Finally, given the current data on the limited samples, we do not regard the problems facing the young overeducated as being more serious than those facing the old cohort.     

Are Older Workers Disadvantaged in the Hong Kong Labour Market?

Using data collected from two surveys on the labour market in Hong Kong, this paper shows that older workers on average are more likely to be unemployed than younger ones. Unemployed workers aged above 45 tend to face a longer spell of unempoyment, receive fewer job offers and expect lower future wages than the unemployed younger workers. Older employed workers may also be disadvantaged. This paper compares the promotion and training opportunities available to olderand younger employed workers. We found that older workers are less likely to bepromoted or selected for training.     

Horizontal transfer,vertical promotion,and evolution of firm organization

This paper investigates interactions among horizontal transfers, promotions across ranks, and creation and destruction of jobs inside a large Japanese manufacturing firm. In this sample firm, we find that job creation and destruction accounts for the majority of horizontal transfers of employees within the firm. This is in sharp contrast to a popular perception that employees move according to a well-defined career path in a stable organization with an internal labor market. Instead, we find that units and jobs are constantly created and destroyed at this firm and that individual career paths are far more dynamic and state and path dependent than the popular perception would suggest.The econometric analysis on determinants of promotion policy confirm these findings, as well as predictions based on the multi-skilling model of human capital. First of all, transfers to functionally similar units which enable employees to acquire multiple skills do enhance promotion probability. On the other hand, transfers to functionally or geographically different units are often detrimental to the promotion prospect, especially those that occur at earlier stages of an employee's career. In general, an employee's career at this firm is significantly influenced by the success or failure of particular units and, in particular, we find that the promotion probability for some types of employees is significantly higher for those transferred from sections that had been eliminated, and also for those transferred into newly created sections. J. Japanese Int. Economies 20 (1) (2006) 20–49.     

Wage Consequences of Rapid Tertiary Education Expansion in a Developing Economy: The Case of Thailand

In recent years, Thailand has experienced the emergence of “overeducated” workers as the supply of university graduates in Thailand has outpaced growth in high‐skilled employment opportunities. Using the 2007 to 2009 Thai Labor Force Survey, this paper quantifies the incidence of overeducation and estimates overeducation wage penalties among male university graduates. The results show that the incidence of overeducation is greatest among younger cohorts. Quantile wage regression results suggest that overeducation wage penalties for older workers capture the impact of unobserved low ability on wages. In contrast, persistent wage penalties of 11–26% across the wage/ability distributions for younger workers are consistent with structural imbalances in the Thai labor market. These imbalances make it difficult for university graduates to find jobs commensurate with their level of formal education and to achieve their full earning power. The wage penalties are especially large for new entrants into the labor market.     

Reasons for college major-job mismatch and labor market outcomes: Evidence from China

Almost a quarter of recent college graduates in China are working in jobs that are not related to their college major—mismatched—due to various reasons. In this study, combining administrative records with survey data on a large sample of college graduates from the class of 2019 in a central province of China, we provide, to the best of our knowledge, the first evidence on the effects of different types of mismatches on a variety of labor market outcomes among recent Chinese college graduates. To address the endogeneity problem associated with mismatch, we use a variety of proxies for individual ability and resources, employ the propensity score matching strategy, and use the bounding analysis to examine the extent to which our estimates are sensitive to unobserved influences. Results show that workers who are mismatched due to personal interests (interest-mismatched) have better labor market outcomes than other types of mismatched workers, as well as matched workers, in terms of higher probabilities of getting promoted and receiving on-the-job training. Of all mismatched workers, skill-mismatched workers (mismatched due to a lack of skills) and demand-mismatched workers (mismatched due to jobs in related fields being unavailable) are associated with lower probabilities of job satisfaction, promotion, and job stability. Results from identification strategies reveal some evidence of selection on observed variables and some evidence of sample selection, but our findings remain consistent and most estimates are robust to a potentially relatively large influence of unobserved heterogeneity. Further analysis demonstrates some gender differences in the estimated effects of different types of mismatches on labor market outcomes.     

Job-worker mismatch and cognitive decline

We have used longitudinal test data on various aspects of people'scognitive abilities to analyse whether overeducated workersare more vulnerable to a decline in their cognitive abilities,and undereducated workers are less vulnerable. We found thata job-worker mismatch induces a cognitive decline with respectto immediate and delayed recall abilities, cognitive flexibilityand verbal fluency. Our findings indicate that, to some extent,it is the adjustment of the ability level of the overeducatedand undereducated workers that adjusts initial job-worker mismatch.This adds to the relevance of preventing overeducation, andshows that being employed in a challenging job contributes toworkers’ cognitive resilience.     

Overeducation,market recognition,and effective labour supply

Supply of skilled workers in an economy is usually measured based on the number of highly educated people. This may, however, lead to an overestimation of effective labour supply when considerable people are overeducated. By incorporating a concept of “market recognition,” which proxies the gap between the capabilities reflected through the education level and the capabilities required by employers, we establish a general equilibrium model to quantify this gap in China during 1999–2011. Our calibration results show that overeducation had deteriorated as market recognition continued to decline. We give an interpretation from the perspective of effective labour supply.     

The internal labour dynamics of the Great Eastern Railway Company, 1870–1913

An important labour market development towards the end of the nineteenth century was the rise of the internal labour market. Railway companies were pioneers in this area, and this article presents an analysis of the career histories of 848 traffic staff workers of the Great Eastern Railway Company. This large longitudinal sample provides the first detailed account of the internal labour dynamics of a pre-1914 railway company, providing a unique insight into an early internal labour market. It shows that there was a clearly structured market for unskilled entrants, that promotion and demotion were an important managerial tool, and that there was a significant wage premium for promotion.     

A test of the signalling hypothesis

Education may enhance earnings either because of human capitalincreases or by signalling unobservable worker attributes. Previoustests of these alternatives relied on ad hoc distinctions betweenthem. Our theoretical model provides a direct signal measureas the difference between required and necessary qualifications,forming the basis for an ordered-probit model of discrete differencesbetween required and necessary qualifications that depend onfirm, job, and worker attributes. Estimates support the model'spredictions, providing a continuous, predicted signal measurefor second-stage earnings equations. These results provide thefirst formal evidence of a significant, positive, gender-specificreturn to a signal and indicate a downward bias in the returnto education from excluding the signal measure.     

Effects of Educational Mistmatch on Wages in the Korean Labor Market*

Using data on Korean workers from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, the present study empirically investigates the incidence and wage effects of educational mismatch. Among full‐time workers aged 25–54, approximately 27 percent are overeducated and 15 percent are undereducated. Our results reveal that, after controlling for omitted variable bias and measurement errors, return to an additional year of overeducation is significantly less than that to a year of required education, whereas undereducated workers do not appear to suffer wage penalties associated with their deficit schooling. The findings also show that returns to a year of overeducation vary across fields of study. The returns to overeducation for college graduates from health and welfare, engineering and manufacturing, and social sciences, business and law are relatively high compared with those in agriculture, services, and humanities and arts.     

Retirement policy,employment status,and gender pay gap in urban China

China’s current retirement policy has been in effect since 1978. The legal retirement age is 50 years for female workers, 55 years for female cadres, and 60 years for male cadres and workers; women can retire 5 or 10 years earlier than men. This difference in legal retirement age may affect wage growth in those approaching retirement. Based on China’s Urban Household Survey data set, this study investigated the influence of retirement age differences on the gender pay gap. From age 30 to 49 years, the wage difference between female workers and cadres increased by approximately 15 % more than that of men. After consideration of possible endogeneity problems and demonstration of the robustness of the regression results, the study determined that such differences were likely caused by gender and identity differences at retirement age. Among workers and cadres, the retirement age policy exacerbated gender differences in wages through working hours, wage rate, career promotion, and job change activity in those approaching retirement.     

金融危机背景下高技能型人才激励机制研究

高技能型人才是我国人才队伍的重要组成部分,尤其是在金融危机的背景下,高技能型人才成为振兴制造业的关键。目前,制造企业要实现产业结构升级最缺乏的就是高技能型人才。文章在对高技能型人才短缺现状和原因进行分析的基础上,从薪酬激励、职业生涯激励和培训激励三个方面构建了高技能型人才的激励机制,以期有效解决其短缺问题。     

Effects of state-sponsored human capital investment on the selection of training type

Since the 1990s, firms in Japan have reduced their human capital investment in the workplace to minimize costs. Moreover, in response to the increase in the number of non-regular employees and turnover rates, workers need to have greater incentive to make the self-motivated investment in themselves for their self-protection. In this study, we first estimate the effects of workers’ self-motivated investment in themselves on wage rates. Next, we explore who is likely to participate in which training type and accordingly estimate the effects of the self-motivated investment on wage rates by training type. Our estimates controlling for individual-level fixed-effects indicate that the return is significantly positive and particularly high for practical training related to workers’ current jobs, and regular workers tend to self-select these higher-returns programs, while non-regular workers are more likely to enroll in lower-returns programs, such as schooling. This trend in investment in oneself could potentially increase the wage inequality between regular and non-regular workers through the self-selection of training types. Our estimates reveal that receiving the training and education benefit raises the likelihood for workers to participate in a high-return training program regardless of whether they are non-regular or regular workers. This suggests that government benefits on self-investment change workers’ self-selection of training type and serve to promote practical trainings that lead to high returns.     

Job Allocation Rules and Sorting Efficiency: Experimental Outcomes in a Peter Principle Environment

An important issue in personnel economics is the design of efficient job allocation rules. Firms often use promotions both to sort workers across jobs and to provide them with incentives. However, the Peter Principle states that employees' output tends to fall after a promotion. Lazear (2004) suggests that self‐selection may improve job allocation efficiency while preserving incentive effects. We reproduce this Peter Principle in the laboratory and compare the efficiency of a promotion standard with subjects self‐selecting their task. We find no evidence of effort distortion, as predicted by theory. Furthermore, we find that when the Peter Principle is not severe, promotion rules often dominate self‐selection efficiency of task assignment. Results are consistent with imperfect appraisal of transitory ability and a lack of strategic behavior.     

职业成长与工作满意度：研究述评与展望

工作满意度因其蕴含的福利意义以及能够反映从业人员的主观工作态度而受到学术研究和政策制定者的广泛关注.系统梳理了有关工作满意度研究的概念内涵及测度方法演进,并在此基础上根据中国劳动市场特征,有针对性地从职业成长角度,特别是从职业成长所包含的收入报酬、职位晋升、职业能力发展与职业目标进展4个方面重点归纳并评述职业成长影响工作满意度的理论研究进展、机制作用路径与主要实证结果.总结了现有研究的不足及针对中国研究可拓展的方向.     

Overeducation,major mismatch,and return to higher education tiers: Evidence from novel data source of a major online recruitment platform in China

We develop a novel approach to study overeducation by extracting pre-match information from online recruitment platforms using word segmentation and dictionary building techniques, which can offer significant advantages over traditional survey-based approaches in objectiveness, timeliness, sample sizes, area coverage and richness of controls. We apply this method to China, which has experienced a 10-fold expansion of its higher education sector over the last two decades. We find that about half of online job-seekers in China are two or more years overeducated, resulting in 5.1% pay penalty. However, the effect of overeducation on pay varies significantly by college quality, city type, and the match of college major with industry. Graduates in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) or LEM (Law, Economics and Management) from Key Universities are much less likely to be overeducated in the first place, and actually enjoy a significant pay premium even when they are in the situation.     

浅谈人力资源前期开发

人力资源前期开发是为在校期间的大学生提供系统的培训、锻炼,使之将来工作时能适应企业的文化,更好地为企业服务.人力资源前期开发无论从人才储备,还是从市场推广的角度讲,对公司的长远发展肯定是有好处的.困扰人力资源前期开发的是忠诚度及经费.就业大学生期待的是个人职业生涯的设计.     

Understanding Cross‐Country Differences in Valuation Ratios: A Variance Decomposition Approach

We use a variance decomposition approach to examine why aggregate valuation ratios differ across countries. In a cross section of 22 developed countries from 1980 to 2009, we find that 50 percent of all cross‐country differences in the aggregate price‐to‐book ratio (P/B) can be explained by cross‐country differences in expected future five‐year profitability. In the second half of our sample period, this percentage exceeds that of the first half, rising to almost 64 percent. Although international differences in accounting standards and conventions may have made earnings from different countries more difficult to compare relative to dividends, we find that it is still cross‐country differences in expected future profitability, rather than dividend growth rates, that are more closely related to international differences in valuation ratios. Even among 25 emerging markets, we find that expected future profitability at the five‐year horizon can account for 29 percent of all cross‐country P/B variations. Our results show that international investors are able to identify substantial cross‐country differences in future‐earnings prospects and incorporate them into stock market valuations.     

Dual Labour Market Intermediaries in Italy: How to Lay off “Lemons”—Thereby Creating a Problem of Adverse Selection

Using longitudinal data from the Bank of Italy that cover the period from 2004 to 2014, this paper investigates the wage- and career implications of temporary jobs across the entire wage profile via unconditional quantile regression models and dynamic panel probit models. Building on Autor’s contributions, we consider temporary jobs to be a Labour Market Intermediary that deals with job-matching problems, such as information asymmetries, search cost reductions, worker-side adverse selection, and pay-productivity gaps. Assuming that wage is a proxy for workers’ productivity, we examine the chances that temporary workers who are located in different quantiles of wage distribution have of making the transition towards a stable employment position in the primary labour market. Results clearly indicate that temporarily employed individuals suffer significant wage- and career penalties. Not only are these individuals overly concentrated in the lowest decile of wage distribution, but the career penalty associated with temporary jobs also remains stable independently of the wage/productivity quantile to which the workers belong. If firms use FTC or TWA at all, they do so to remove less productive workers, whose work contract is not renewed once expired. In light of this evidence, it is clear that the hypothesis—proposed in the economic literature—that temporary employment contracts might serve as a screening tool to identify the most productive workers who would then be offered a stable position in the primary labour market does not hold in the highly dualised labour market of Southern Europe.