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

本研究的总体目标是分析Covid-19危机如何影响毕业生的劳动力市场结果，特别是与他们在与其资格相符的职业中找到工作的机会有关。文献显示，在当前危机之前，英国约有三分之一的毕业生没有找到毕业生工作。这种教育或技能的不匹配引发了毕业生、经济学家和政策制定者的几个担忧。那些大材小用的毕业生会遭受工资惩罚，也就是说，他们比那些找到了完美工作的人挣得少。技能不匹配还与低工作满意度和低生产力表现有关。目前的危机对劳动力市场产生了强烈的负面影响，失业率上升，职位空缺减少。这些因素可能以何种方式影响技能不匹配和毕业生的工资不得而知。酒店和休闲等大材小用毕业生比例较高的行业受到危机的打击尤为严重，这可能会导致这种不匹配现象的减少。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专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流失和技能不匹配的加剧。使用最新的数据，我们研究的第一部分将从分析不同职业的毕业生分布以及这种分布如何随时间变化（职业转变）开始，解决这些问题。这将为毕业生提供对不断变化的工作机会的理解。然后，我们将重点评估技能不匹配的情况，以及这种情况如何受到Covid-19危机的影响。关于经济衰退时期如何影响这种不匹配的证据很少，但我们的预期是，这种影响可能是巨大的，特别是对年轻的毕业生来说，他们在高度不确定性和失业率上升的时候进入劳动力市场。通过与工人资格不匹配的职业进入劳动力市场可能是未来继续不匹配的陷阱。这可能导致职业前景恶化和工资水平降低。在这方面，提供培训变得非常重要，因为这可能增加他们留在目前工作岗位或在有关部门找到类似工作的机会；它也可能满足公司对新技能的需求。2007年经济大衰退后，政府提出了支持教育和培训的政策，以帮助失业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，并有助于减少技能不匹配。鉴于熟练劳动力对生产力和创新的重要性，了解培训吸收的状况可以帮助我们预测未来对复苏至关重要的技能的可用性。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之间的重要差异。众所周知，英国各地在生产率增长和工资方面的地区差异越来越大，新冠肺炎危机可能会加剧这些差异，导致地区不平等加剧。这些不平等的部分原因可能与毕业生总体就业机会的差异、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有关，这些职业使他们能够从人力资本投资中获益。因此，我们分析的区域维度将补充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.