Skills mismatches – an impediment to the competitiveness of EU businesses

The European economy loses over 2% of productivity per year due to a mismatch of skills, according to a recent study commissioned by the European Economic and Social Committee. This means a loss of 80 eurocents for each hour of work. The situation will get even worse in the future due to demographic trends and ongoing technological developments, if no reforms are undertaken.

The study was prepared by the  Institute for Market Economics, Bulgaria  at the request of the Employers’ Group of the European Economic and Social Committee. This report  is dedicated to the study of skills mismatches in the EU and their effect on the competitiveness of EU businesses. It includes a comprehensive review of existing literature on the issue and outlines some of the main conclusions regarding the relation of skill mismatches to education, personal and aggregate productivity, labour market dynamics and outcomes, innovation capacity and competitiveness. The study also includes the results of a dedicated survey designed to shed further light on the causes and effects of skills mismatches from the point of view of companies.

We provide further evidence of the importance of Mismatch Priority Occupations (as identified by Cedefop), as well as additional insight into potential labour market bottleneck is five reference countries (Austria, Bulgaria, Finland, Germany and Spain).The document can be downloaded via the following link.