Global Skill Shortages Book

?As a legacy of the Great Depression, measurement of unemployment ? labor surplus ? advanced throughout the developed world. Macroeconomists focused on driving down unemployment. The reverse condition, labor shortage, was generally neglected and often unmeasured. In this volume, Cohen and Zaidi ably redress the balance, focusing on the labor shortage phenomenon and its statistical appraisal. Their work will surely stimulate further research into labor shortages, the response of employers and workers to them, and critical issues of labor shortage measurement.? ? Daniel J.B. Mitchell, University of California, Los Angeles As the world entered the twenty-first century, global skill shortages in many occupations were evident throughout the world. While these were mitigated by a global recession, there is no generally agreed upon method for measuring these shortages. This book discusses various theories for measurement. Using data collected from 19 developed countries in North and Latin America, Europe, and the Pacific region, the authors explore various aspects of skilled labor shortages, develop a methodology of measuring shortages by occupation, and provide estimates of the likelihood of the occurrence of such shortages. They develop labor market indicators which measure the degree of shortage or surplus in as many as 49 different occupations. The indicators are compared to anecdotal reports about shortages in the countries studied as well as correlated with various economic, political and institutional indicators. Some occupations such as computer scientists were common across countries and part of a global shortage. Scholars, government officials, students and corporate and union representatives concerned with employment, labor and training policies and issues will find the data and analysis in this book a valuable addition to their knowledge.Read More