The Effects of Over-Education on Domestic Labor Markets

The economic trend of global trade and highly efficient but complicated supply chains is starting to reverse. Advanced economies have so far probably been able to get away with an overabundance of over-skilled workers because a lot of lower skilled jobs could just be off-shore. If the trend really does end up with more basic manufacturing coming back to advanced economies then the demand for practical trade skills will skyrocket. At best this will leave a lot of people working in jobs that they are overqualified for. At worst it will further heighten the skills shortage and continue to disrupt the supply of goods and services in our economies.