Occupational changes and skill mismatch following Covid-19: implications for graduates in the UK

这项研究的总体目标是分析新冠肺炎危机如何影响毕业生的劳动力市场结果，特别是与他们找到与自己资格匹配的职业的机会的关系。相关文献显示，在当前这场危机之前，英国约有三分之一的毕业生没有从事研究生工作。这种教育或技能的不匹配在毕业生、经济学家和政策制定者中引发了几个担忧。对工作要求过高的毕业生会受到工资处罚，即他们的收入比那些找到完美工作的人要少。技能不匹配还与低工作满意度和低生产率表现有关。目前的危机对劳动力市场产生了强烈的负面影响，导致失业率上升，职位空缺数量减少。这些因素可能会对技能错配和毕业生工资产生怎样的影响，目前尚不清楚。酒店和休闲等高学历毕业生比例较高的行业尤其受到危机的打击，这可能会导致错配比例下降。与此同时，许多工人正在失去工作，一旦封锁结束，他们可能无法在现有职业或具有相同技能要求的职业中找到工作，这种情况将导致人力资本的损失和技能错配的增加。利用最新的数据，我们研究的第一部分将从分析毕业生在不同职业中的分布以及这种分布如何随着时间的推移(职业轮换)而变化开始，解决这些问题。这将提供对毕业生改变工作机会的理解。然后我们将重点关注对技能错配的评估，以及这是如何受到新冠肺炎危机的影响的。几乎没有证据表明经济衰退时期如何影响错配，但我们的预期是，这种影响可能是巨大的，特别是对年轻毕业生来说，他们进入劳动力市场的时候，不确定性很高，失业率不断上升。通过与工人资质不匹配的职业进入劳动力大军，可能是未来继续错配的陷阱。这可能会导致职业前景恶化和工资水平下降。在这种情况下，提供培训变得非常重要，因为它可以增加留在现有工作或在相关部门找到类似工作的机会；它还可以满足公司对新技能的需求。旨在支持教育和培训的政策是在2007年大衰退后倡导的，以帮助流离失所的工人找到新的工作机会。通过分析毕业生在危机期间接受培训的情况，我们将评估这是否改善了他们的前景，并有助于减少技能错配。鉴于熟练劳动力对生产率和创新的重要性，了解培训吸收的状况可以帮助我们预测未来可获得的技能，这些技能将对经济复苏至关重要。我们的研究还认识到，英国劳动力市场的总体趋势可能掩盖了英国各地区的重要差异。众所周知，就生产率增长和工资水平而言，英国各地的地区差距越来越大，而新冠肺炎危机可能会加剧这些差距，导致地区差距扩大。这些不平等的部分原因可能与毕业生的总体就业机会、年轻毕业生的就业机会以及他们在职业中找到工作的能力不同有关，这些职业使他们能够从对人力资本的投资中获益。因此，我们分析的区域维度将补充对英国总体趋势的研究，并为毕业生提供对劳动力市场机会的详细了解。

The overall objective of this study is to analyze how the Covid-19 crisis is affecting graduates' labor market outcomes, particularly in relation to their chances of finding employment in occupations that match their qualification. The literature shows that, before the current crisis, approximately a third of graduates in the UK were not employed in graduate jobs. This educational or skill mismatch generates several concerns among graduates, economists and policy makers. Graduates who are overqualified for their job suffer a wage penalty, i.e. they earn less than those who find a perfect job match. The skill mismatch is also associated with low job satisfaction and low productivity performance. The current crisis is having a strong negative impact on the labor market in terms of increasing the unemployment rate and causing a decline in the number of vacancies. The ways in which these might affect the skill mismatch and the wages of graduates are unknown. Sectors with high proportions of overqualified graduates, such as hotels and leisure, have been particularly hit by the crisis and this might lead to a decline in the mismatch. At the same time, many workers are losing their jobs and may not find employment in their existing profession or in occupations with the same skill requirement once the lockdown is over, a situation that would lead to a loss of human capital and an increase in the skill mismatch. Using the most up-to-date data, the first part of our study will address these issues starting with an analysis of the distribution of graduates across different occupations and how this distribution has changed over time (occupational shifts). This will provide an understanding of changing job opportunities for graduates. We will then focus on the evaluation of the skill mismatch and how this has been affected by the Covid-19 crisis. There is scant evidence of how periods of recession affect the mismatch, but our expectation is that the impact may be substantial, particularly for young graduates, who enter the labor market at a time of high uncertainty and increasing unemployment rates. Entering the labor force through occupations that do not match workers' qualifications could be a trap to continuing mismatch in the future. This may result in deteriorating career prospects and lower wage levels. In this context, provision of training becomes very important as it may increase the chances of either remaining in their current job or finding similar jobs in related sectors; it may also meet firms' needs for new skills. Policies directed towards supporting education and training were advocated after the Great Recession in 2007 to help displaced workers find new job opportunities. By analyzing graduates' uptake of training during the crisis we will assess whether this has improved their prospects and contributed to a reduction in the skill mismatch. Given the importance of a skilled workforce for productivity and innovation, understanding the status of training uptake could help us predict future availability of skills that are going to be crucial for the recovery. Our study also recognizes that overall trends for the UK labor market might hide important differences across UK regions. It is well know that there are increasing regional disparities in terms of productivity growth and wages across the UK and the Covid-19 crisis might exacerbate these differences and lead to increasing regional inequalities. Part of these inequalities may be related to differences in job opportunities for graduates overall, for young graduates and their ability to find employment in occupations that allows them to reap the benefits of their investment in human capital. Hence, a regional dimension of our analysis will complement the study of UK total trends and provide a detailed understanding of labor market opportunities for graduates.