South By North Strategies, Ltd.

 Macroblog, the blog of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, weighs the evidence for and against the argument that the current problems in the labor market are due to skill mismatches between workers and firms.

Despite the fact that we see some evidence consistent with skill mismatch, it is far from clear that this issue is the smoking gun that explains the current anemic state of job growth. When asked if a dearth of skilled applicants is a persistent problem, our survey respondents overwhelmingly answer “yes.” But when asked if they have had more difficulty hiring over the past 12 months, the overwhelming majority answered “no”…
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We infer a couple of lessons from all of this information. First, it does appear that there is a long-term skill level problem in the U.S. economy. Adopting Capelli’s definition of skill does not mean the existence of skill mismatch is a myth.
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But turning to the short run, we’ve been pretty sympathetic to structural explanations for the slow pace of the recovery. Nonetheless, we have yet to find much evidence that problems with skill-mismatch are more important postrecession than they were prerecession. We’ll keep looking, but—as our colleagues at the Chicago Fed conclude in their most recent Chicago Fed Letter—so far the facts just don’t support skill gaps as the major source of our current labor market woes.