Causes of labour supply and demand mismatches in the Dutch building trades

Summary In this paper the significance of some hypotheses on possible causes of labour supply and demand mismatches is tested on data of the Dutch building trades by means of a UV analysis. In contrast with most other UV research this study does not refer to a search-theoretical framework, but focuses on skill differences between labour supply and demand. Three significant causes of labour market frictions appear to be: the development of the skill composition of labour demand, the apprenticeship possibilities and the relatively high wages of older workers. Some other hypotheses show weakly significant results: bumping-down processes, reschooling of unemployed older workers and the development of secondary labour market segments.At the moment of writing this paper the author was working at the Department of Economics, Free University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.The author would like to thank Professor J.A.M. Heijke, dr. N. van Hulst, Professor J.G. Knot, Professor J.J.M. Theeuwes and Professor A.J. Vermaat for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper and G.A. van Pruissen for his assistance in computer work.