In a new book, University of Pennsylvania business professor Peter Cappelli offers a different take, arguing that a big part of the reason American firms feel as if they can't find qualified workers is because of overly restrictive hiring practices. Based on interviews with personnel managers and others, he describes procedures that screen out anyone without precisely the right academic qualifications, job descriptions that include so many different roles that finding one person to fill the slot is practically impossible, and employers who aren't willing to hire people without specific past job titles, even if those people are otherwise experienced enough for the job.



EVERYBODY'S FAVORITE EXCUSE

And so we are left with a puzzle. If there is no clear-cut evidence of a broad-based skills mismatch and plenty of competing theories for what ails the job market, then why do we so often fall back on the story of skills? A few dynamics are likely at play.

First, the skills mismatch is a simple tale to tell. There is a thing called a worker and a thing called a job, and they may or may not match on skill level. The messy truth of the workplace, that workers and jobs are deeply interactive -- that a person's ability to perform well often depends on his colleagues, how much autonomy his position allows, and the relative rewards for taking risks and playing it safe -- is conveniently set aside. It is difficult to explain, let alone fix, macroeconomic factors like weak aggregate demand. Believing that workers don't know how to do jobs right is easy to grasp and, on its surface, easy to remedy: everyone gets more education and training.

Second, the notion that workers lack skill is one that rings true to many people who have ever tried to fill a job opening. It's not hard to find anecdotes about firms posting positions and getting a lackluster response. But extrapolating from personal experience -- especially the sort of personal experience that is likely to stick out in one's mind as a frustration -- and concluding that a national trend is afoot is tricky business. That's why we have nationally representative employer surveys and large data sets that researchers spend years systematically analyzing.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, the concept of the skills mismatch neatly serves many ideological masters.

As sociologist Michael Handel points out in his book Worker Skills and Job Requirements, in the skills mismatch debate, it is often not clear who is missing what skill. The term is used to talk about technical manufacturing know-how, doctoral-grade engineering talent, high-school level knowledge of reading and math, interpersonal smoothness, facility with personal computers, college credentials, problem-solving ability, and more. Depending on the conversation, the problem lies with high-school graduates, high-school drop-outs, college graduates without the right majors, college graduates without the right experience, new entrants to the labor force, older workers, or younger workers. Since the problem is hazily defined, people with vastly different agendas are able to get in on the conversation--and the solution.