He who seeks shall find ... or perhaps not?

Abstract

"This study takes as a starting point the current debate surrounding the additional demand for skilled labour, and makes use of an employer search model in order to explain it. In these theoretical approaches the firms decide upon an optimal strategy for searching for new staff. For this they lay down a minimum qualification level for applicants with whom they conclude a contract of employment. If for technical or other reasons these qualification requirements are determined exogenously, however, it might no longer be possible to pursue an optimal search strategy. This may lead to an unsatisfied demand for labour on the part of the firms. The data of the IAB establishment panel for 2000 support the considerations. The descriptive analysis shows that it is particularly difficult to fill vacancies for entgineers and computer scientists. Firms affected by unfilled vacancies often report that there are no suitable applicants. Multivariate analyses on the number of unfilled vacancies also confirm the hypotheses of the search model. In particular technical and organisational changes raise the number of unfilled vacancies for graduates. However, the wage level, the economic trend and other company characteristics are also of importance. It can thus be seen that the approach of an employer search model can help very well to explain the current situation on the labour market for highly qualified workers." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Kölling, A. (2002): He who seeks shall find ... or perhaps not? Analysis of firms' searches for qualified personnel, using data from the IAB establishment panel 2000. In: IAB Labour Market Research Topics No. 47, p. 1-28.