High and persistent unemployment has been experienced by most developed countries during the 1980s. Many researchers have sought to explain this development in terms of "mismatch," arguing that the economies that have suffered most from persistently high unemployment are those that have been least flexible in matching their unemployed with the available employment opportunities. This conference proceedings volume examines the evidence on sectoral wage differentials, labor mobility and the ratio of unemployment to job vacancies in detailed studies of seven countries with a wide variety of labor market and macroeconomic structures: the United States, Japan, West Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain.

The debate on the free movement of labour within the EU has gained new momentum in the wake of the economic crisis. Building on the earlier Ashgate publication EU Labour Migration Since Enlargement, the editors have assembled a team of experts from across Europe to shed light on the critical issues raised by internal labour mobility within the EU in the context of economic crisis and labour market pressures. The book's chapters tease out the links between economic developments, regulatory frameworks and migration patterns in different European countries. A central focus is on issues of skills and skills mismatch and how they relate to migration forms, duration and individual decisions to stay or return. Based on detailed analysis of European and national-level sources, the results presented clearly contradict assumptions about a "knowledge driven migration". Rather, over-qualification and the corresponding underutilisation of migrant workers' skills emerge as a pervasive phenomenon. At the same time the characteristics of migrants - not just skills, but socio-demographic characteristics and attitudes - and also their labour market integration are shown to be very diverse and to vary substantially between different sending and receiving countries. This calls for a differentiated analysis and raises complex issues for policymakers. Examples where policy has contributed to positive outcomes for both migrants and domestic workforces are identified. Unique in analysing labour migration flows within the European Union in a comparative manner putting skills into the centre and taking account of the effects of the economic crisis, while addressing policy concerns this is a valuable resource for academics, policymakers and practitioners alike.

This publication gathers the papers presented at the “OECD-EU dialogue on mobility and international migration: matching economic migration with labour market needs” (Brussels, 24-25 February 2014), a conference jointly organised by the European Commission and the OECD.

Using panel data from the 2010 Graduates Occupational Mobility Survey, this paper estimates the incidence and impact of horizontal and vertical mismatches on labour mobility among Korean female college graduates at the early stages of their careers. Unlike most previous studies, this study proposes three types of educational mismatch status: (1) vertically mismatched only; (2) horizontally mismatched only; and (3) both vertically and horizontally mismatched. The findings show that the share of educationally mismatched workers is non-negligible in the Korean labour market (approximately 30)per)cent). However, the data also points to an improvement in job matching over time. Regardless of the type of educational mismatch, the results provide evidence consistent with many previous studies: educational mismatch is significantly and positively associated with job turnover. In particular, vertically and horizontally mismatched workers are more likely to switch jobs than their vertically or horizontally mismatched counterparts. These findings indicate that educationally mismatched graduates are more likely to change jobs--suggesting that educational mismatch can be viewed as an investment in human capital at the beginning of a career.

This volume contains original research articles which analyze the linkages between education and skills and the causes and consequences of different types of skill mismatch. The volume yields new insights regarding overeducation, underskilling, graduate jobs, wages returns to skills, aggregate productivity, job complexity and skill development.

We develop a framework where mismatch between vacancies and job seekers across sectors translates into higher unemployment by lowering the aggregate job-finding rate. We use this framework to measure the contribution of mismatch to the recent rise in U.S. unemployment by exploiting two sources of cross-sectional data on vacancies, JOLTS and HWOL, a new database covering the universe of online U.S. job advertisements. Mismatch across industries and occupations explains at most 1/3 of the total observed increase in the unemployment rate, whereas geographical mismatch plays no apparent role. The share of the rise in unemployment explained by occupational mismatch is increasing in the education level.

This dissertation includes three essays on labor market matching, labor mobility and educational mismatch.