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American Economic Review Vol. 104 No. 11 2014

Mismatch Unemployment

Ayşegül Şahin1; Joseph Song2; Giorgio Topa3; Giovanni L. Violante4

1 Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 33 Liberty Street, New York, NY 10045 (e-mail: ) · 2 Columbia University, 1022 International Affairs Building, Mail Code 3008, 420 West 118th Street, New York, NY 10027 (e-mail: ) · 3 Federal Reserve Bank of New York and IZA, 33 Liberty Street, New York, NY 10045 (e-mail: ) · 4 New York University, 19 W. Fourth Street, 6th Fl., New York, NY 10012, CEPR, and NBER (e-mail: ).

Abstract

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 US unemployment by exploiting two sources of cross-sectional data on vacancies, JOLTS and HWOL. Our calculations indicate that mismatch, across industries and three-digit occupations, explains at most one-third of the total observed increase in the unemployment rate. Occupational mismatch has become especially more severe for college graduates, and in the West of the United States. Geographical mismatch unemployment plays no apparent role.

DOI
10.1257/aer.104.11.3529
Volume
104
Issue
11
Pages
3529-3564
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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