How Do We Know Occupational Labor Shortages Exist?

Labor Shortage and Innovation

“…Most empirical analyses use survey results capturing the individual perception of firms´ labor and skill shortages. A caveat of this approach is that the questioned firms might show a tendency to exaggerate labor shortage in their answers (see also Barnow et al 2013 andGreen et al 1998). In addition to this argument, Arrow and Capron (1959) point to the fact that if firm representatives are asked about labor shortage they talk about "unfilled vacancies with salaries equal to those of engineers and scientists now employed by the firm and performing equivalent services."…”

When is High Turnover Cheaper? A Simple Model of Cost Tradeoffs in a Long‐Distance Truckload Motor Carrier, with Empirical Evidence and Policy Implications

“…However, this does not apply in the labor market for truck drivers in the U.S. Federal and state minimum wages arguably provide a type of floor below which driver wages may not drop (Jaillet 2018;Premack 2018;Premack 2019), but there are no regulatory price caps. A second might be that the supply response is very slow, such as may be the case with nurses or engineers, for whom the training pipeline may be several years long (Barnow, Trutko and Piatak 2013a;Barnow, Trutko and Piatak 2013b). However, while there is some 2022b).…”

“…An initial problem is that there is no clear dividing line between a tight labor market for truck drivers (as observed in Burks and Monaco (2019)), and an occupational labor shortage. If we had such a dividing line, the cleanest evidence of an occupational labor shortage arguably would be a significant increase in the number of job vacancies (Barnow, Trutko and Piatak 2013a;Barnow, Trutko and Piatak 2013b In a classic study of the supply of engineers in the 1950s, Blank and Stigler (1957) the gap almost disappeared, before reappearing. These two (proxied) comparisons to the wages of occupational groups often considered to be an important alternative for truckers (Global Insight Inc. 2005) show the opposite of the pattern suggested in Blank and Stigler (1957).…”

“…This category is a bit too broad to tell us much about drivers in NAICS 484121. And, even if vacancies were available by occupations, the Standard Occupational Code is still too coarse to be a great deal of help(Barnow, Trutko and Piatak 2013a;Barnow, Trutko and Piatak 2013b). In particular, the category of heavy and tractortrailer truck drivers is still too inclusive to help us much: out of a little less than 2 million non-farm-based employees in this category in 2022 (Bureau of Labor Statistics Staff 2023q), only 49% work in for-hire trucking, and assuming driver numbers are comparable to total employee numbers, only about 35% of those are in general freight long-distance truckload (NAICS 484121) and about 15% in the specialized freight segments (NAICS 484230) that are operationally similar.…”

“…In particular, the category of heavy and tractortrailer truck drivers is still too inclusive to help us much: out of a little less than 2 million non-farm-based employees in this category in 2022 (Bureau of Labor Statistics Staff 2023q), only 49% work in for-hire trucking, and assuming driver numbers are comparable to total employee numbers, only about 35% of those are in general freight long-distance truckload (NAICS 484121) and about 15% in the specialized freight segments (NAICS 484230) that are operationally similar. 8Indirect signals of a significant increase in vacancies would be measures like increased recruiting efforts or more directly economic measures, such as adding sign-on bonuses, increasing pay, improving working conditions, or the like(Barnow, Trutko and Piatak 2013a;Barnow, Trutko and Piatak 2013b). But systematic nationally representative data are not available for our target labor market for these indicators, either.7 Some additional breakouts are available by state and by employee-size class, but not for the industry sector of interest here.…”