Field-of-study mismatch occurs when workers educated in a particular field work in another. It is conceptually distinct from qualifications or skills mismatch, although a part of qualifications and skills mismatch results from graduates from a particular field having to downgrade to find work in another field. Some studies have identified labour market dynamics related to field-of-study mismatch, but few (if any) have sought to directly understand the interplay between labour supply factors (the types of skills brought to the workplace) and the labour demand factors (the types of skills demanded by employers) in field-of-study mismatch. Using data from the Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competencies' Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), this paper shows that although students may choose to specialise in a particular field, it is not solely up to them to actually work in that field. In accordance with assignment theories, both the degree of saturation of a particular field in the labour market and the level of generic skills of a particular field predict the occurrence of field-of-study mismatch, highlighting that mismatch is the result of both labour supply- and demand-side factors. The paper then evaluates the costs to individuals - in terms of wages, risk of being out of work and job satisfaction. Findings suggest that the costs of field-of-study mismatch may only be high in terms of individual earnings when it is associated to qualification mismatch. For economies, field-of-study mismatch, when associated with qualifications mismatch, can amount to important costs, meriting the attention of policy makers to better aligning course places to skill needs or by encouraging skill transferability across fields.

The Great Recession and subsequent recovery have been particularly painful for low-skilled workers. From 2007 to 2012, the unemployment rate rose by 6.4 percentage points for noncollege workers while it rose by only 2.3 percentage points for the college educated. This differential impact was evident within occupations as well. One explanation for the differential impact may be the ability of highly skilled workers to take middle- and low-skilled jobs. Indeed, over this period the share of workers with a college degree in traditionally middle-skill occupations increased rapidly. Such growth in skill requirements within occupations has become known colloquially as upskilling." It is not clear from employment outcomes alone whether the increasing share of high-skilled workers in middle- and low-skill occupations reflects changing behavior by employers. Few researchers have been able to quantify rising employer requirements due to the difficulty in isolating labor demand from labor supply. In this paper using a novel dataset of online job vacancy postings the authors tackle the question of whether the education and experience requirements for job postings have risen between 2007 and 2012 and if so whether this rise was driven by the state of the local labor market.

Key findings: The construction industry is one of the big beneficiaries of higher carbon prices over the next few years. By 2025, higher carbon prices will spur a wave of investment in new construction, generating jobs and income. Income in the construction industry is over $2.5 billion higher in 2025 with aggressive carbon pricing than with the status quo. An additional 19,000 jobs in construction would be created due to higher carbon prices, and another 20,500 net new jobs would be created in other sectors of the economy. Saskatchewan sees the highest proportion of new jobs created in construction from high carbon prices, followed by Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick, Alberta, and British Columbia. Stringent carbon prices create an additional $12.5 billion in business investment in 2025 and $5.7 billion in increased household spending, led by consumer spending (on things such as new home construction and retrofits). This would be followed by renewable energy, carbon capture and storage, commercial construction, and building efficiency projects. Overall, the major economic impact of higher carbon prices is to shift economic activity, which is consistent with other studies. The construction industry is a net beneficiary of these shifts in the medium-term.

While much of the world is understandably focused on the current recession,there is a looming demographic and labour market crisis which has the potential to shake the very foundations of our society and economy.Our population is aging; as the baby boomer generation advances into the age of normal retirement,there will be a significant decline in the proportion of our population in the prime working years (15 to 64).Using Human Resources and Skills Development Canada and Statistics Canada data,the projected shortfall in the availability of workers is shown to rise to at least 1.4 million and to as high as 3.9 million by 2031, depending on our levels of population growth. Even in the midst of a recession,we have to understand that a labour shortage looms. Unfortunately,this is only half of the bad news. At the same time as our population is aging,the requirements of the labour market are changing. With the emergence of the knowledge economy, the proportion of the labour force requiring some form of education or training beyond high school will increase dramatically.Using a variety of Canadian and U. S. estimates, it is concluded thatby 2031 we will need 77% of our workforce to have post-secondary credentials (apprenticeship, university, college, industry, professional).Overall, we now stand at about 60%,with our younger population (25 to 34 years of age) at just over 66%. So,we will need both a larger workforce and increased skills.For potentialsolutions, increasing the size of the population (immigration) with more skilled workers could help, but it will not solve the problem. Increasing the participation rates of those currently under-represented in the labour force is another option that needs to be explored, as do ways of accelerating graduations, increasing employer-provided training,improving literacy rates,and creating a moreunifiededucationalsystem. But what is most clearly needed is a change in our society's attitude towards post-secondary education. We have to accept attainment of post-secondary education or training as the expectation for all but a small minority of Canadians. Without effective action,we face a future with large numbers of unskilled workers looking for jobs that require skills they do not possess, and a large number of jobs that will go unfilled. The time for action is now. It will take planning, hard work, cooperation, and difficult decisions to secure our future.An alternative outcome is simply unacceptable.

In 2010 the Mental Health Commission of Canada commissioned a study to fill a gap in pan-Canadian information about the number of people living with mental health problems and illness today and the associated costs. The study built a unique model based on a wide range of existing studies in Canada and internationally. Its findings, combined with existing evidence of effective interventions, offer some key reasons for why it is important to invest smartly in mental health.

The term skill mismatch is very broad and can relate to many forms of labour market friction, including vertical mismatch, skill gaps, skill shortages, field of study (horizontal) mismatch and skill obsolescence. In this paper the authors provide a clear overview of each concept and discuss the measurement and inter-relatedness of different forms of mismatch. They present a comprehensive analysis of the current position of the literature on skills mismatch and highlight areas which are relatively underdeveloped and may warrant further research. Using data from the European Skills and Jobs Survey, they examine in detail the incidence of various combinations of skills mismatch across the EU and review the European Commission’s country specific recommendations and find that skills mismatch, when referring to underutilised human capital in the form of overeducation and skills underutilisation, receives little policy attention. They argue that in cases where skills mismatch it is specifically addressed by policy recommendations, the policy advice is either vague or addresses the areas of mismatch for which there is the least available evidence.

Taking this broad-based public discussion as a starting point, we argue that there is a fourth issue that can and should be addressed with regard to university-acquired transferable skills. This issue has students squarely at its centre and is associated with questions such as, To what extent do university students understand what transferable skills are? How well are they able to connect their university learning experiences to the development of these skills? How well can they articulate their skill-based learning? To date, this student-centred perspective concerning the development of transferable skills has been largely absent in public discourse and in the broader research literature. We argue that this is an important oversight for at least two reasons. First, if undergraduates fail to understand the skill-based learning associated with their university experiences, then they will be less likely to recognize the important skills being developed through them. Second, from a pragmatic point of view, if students cannot articulate their skill-based learning and if they are unable to understand how it is fostered through their learning experiences then they will be at a disadvantage in leveraging these skills when they enter the job market. This is likely to be particularly true for undergraduates studying in disciplines in which there is no associated career path, with learning outcomes that have been predefined by a governing body (e.g., those studying general arts and science subjects).

This paper explores the link between skill and qualification mismatch and labor productivity using cross-country industry data for 19 OECD countries. Utilizing mismatch indicators aggregated from micro-data sourced from the recent OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), the main results suggest that higher skill and qualification mismatch is associated with lower labor productivity, with over-skilling and underqualification accounting for most of these impacts. A novel result is that higher skill mismatch is associated with lower labor productivity through a less efficient allocation of resources, presumably because when the share of over-skilled workers is higher, more productive firms find it more difficult to attract skilled labor and gain market shares at the expense of less productive firms. At the same time, a higher share of under-qualified workers is associated with both lower allocative efficiency and within-firm productivity - that is, a lower ratio of high productivity to low productivity firms. While differences in managerial quality can potentially account for the relationship between mismatch and withinfirm productivity, the paper offers some preliminary insights into the policy factors that might explain the link between skill mismatch and resource allocation.