Fane Groes, Daniel le Maire and Nikolaj Harmon get grant from the Carlsberg Foundation

CBS Economics Department Assistant Professor Fane Groes and University of Copenhagen colleagues Associate Professor Daniel le Maire (project PI) and Assistant Professor Nikolaj Harmon have received a grant of 184,000 DKK from the Carlsberg Foundation for a project entitled 'Pushing the Data Frontier in Labor Market Matching'.

The purpose of the project is to analyse if the Danish workforce has the skills required by companies. The project will answer questions such as: How big a share of the total Danish unemployment is caused by lack of qualifications required by companies? What is the significance of vacant postions requiring certain types of skills being located in one part of the country and workers with the relevant skills being located in another part of the country? The project will also look into the extent to which workers are employed in jobs that do not use their educational background and skills properly. To answer these questions Groes and le Maire will create a unique data set by combining data for job advertisements with labour market data for workers and companies.

The answers to these questions are central to policy making. By quantifying the importance of labor market mismatch, the first two questions has implications for how many resources to spend on policies that combat mismatch, including public training programs that try to change the skills of workers, or commuting subsidies that make workers more willing to take up jobs far away from their home.