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Skills mismatch and productivity in the EU

In July 2019, the European Commission released a study on “Skills mismatch and productivity in the EU”.  This paper aimed to analyse different dimensions of skills mismatch (such as ‘macro-economic skills mismatch’, ‘skills shortages’, and ‘on-the-job skills mismatch’) and to study their empirical relationship with labour productivity.

The report implies that certain types of skills mismatch (for example skills shortages and overqualification) are on the rise in the EU, while other types (such as underqualification) have been declining for a long period of time. Moreover, there are also significant differences across EU Member States that feature in this study.

The Commission’s results suggest a positive link between skills supply and productivity, but to reach its full potential, skills should be relevant to the labour market and workers need to be matched with jobs that match their own skills. Therefore, the upskilling policies should be accompanied by other policies that guarantee that there are jobs that match to the skills attained by the upskilling policies.

To learn more about this issue visit the link below:

https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=738&langId=en&pubId=8229&type=2&furtherPubs=no