Does the recovery in employment growth benefit people without a degree?

Abstract

The recovery in employment growth observed in the last two years in France allowed a substantial reduction of the unemployment rate. Since 1993, labor market policies have aimed at lowering the labor costs for unskilled workers. In the same time, the volume of unskilled employment, measured either by the number of jobs or the equivalent number of full-time jobs, has risen after a long period of decline. However individuals without degree benefited less than graduate people by the recent improvement of the unskilled job market. In the recent years, graduate people have taken an increasing share of employment, especially of unskilled employment: the weight of graduate people in unskilled employment increased by 27% between 1993 and 2000. More generally, the link between required skills and degrees possessed by the individuals weakened in the last two decades: whatever the level of the degree, a worker occupies more frequently today an unskilled job than before.job market, employment, skills, unskilled employment