“Three Canadian economists have written a new paper that tries to answer some of the questions around the great skills debate. Is the value of a B.A. really declining and is the value of a trade certificate increasing?” Simona Choise posed the question in a The Globe and Mail article today. Choise continued, “Since 2000, coinciding with the dot-com bust, the demand for highly-skilled workers has declined even as the number of university graduates has increased, they write. Instead, the American economy – and the paper is about the U.S. – has produced more lower-skilled and service jobs. Because employers have had their pick of university graduates, however, they’ve hired above the qualifications of the job while ignoring less qualified workers. The paper, however, is dependent on a hypothesis about employer behaviour: Companies only invest in new technology and the people to make it work up to a point after which they are content to rest on their laurels. But if an economy has lots of university graduates interested in innovation who are starting up businesses or want to work for tech-driven “fast” companies, then companies that want to succeed should be looking for highly-skilled graduates – particularly those in sciences or engineering. Exactly the disciplines that are most in demand in the marketplace.” To find a link to the full study and the original article please visit The Globe and Mail. | Raymond Matt, CFP, CLU, TEP, CHS
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