Damien Mayaux (Dauphine-PSL - DRM / Chaire Gouvernance et Régulation)
Skill distance and job transitions of unemployed workers after a training program
Do training programs help reduce structural imbalances in the labor market? We develop a novel measure of skill distance between occupations by applying a natural language processing algorithm to a sample of job postings. Using this measure, we find that the differential in re-employment rates between trained and untrained workers is driven by reallocations into occupations that are more distant in terms of required skills from the last job held. From a purely reallocative perspective, however, the re-employment differential associated with training programs does not appear to be explained by more frequent transitions into occupations facing strong labor shortages. (With Kevin Michael Frick, Yagan Hazard, Thomas Zuber)