우리나라 제조업의 내부숙련수요와 숙련부족에 관한 연구: 사업체 수급실태조사 결과를 바탕으로

It has been much reported that the shortage in technology and engineering workforce serves as an obstacle toward industrial growth. With regard to this, a few surveys have been conducted. However, workforce shortage and its relative importance have been very rarely tackled. This paper made use of the recent survey results of about 3,600 businesses and analyzed the determining factors behind the shortage of skilled workers. Particularly, our analysis focuses on the relationship between the workforce shortage and skill demand by these businesses including businesses' innovative activities. The result of the empirical analysis showed that businesses' demand for skilled workers significantly influenced the tendency of job vacancies. Especially, the occurrence of shortage was better explained when the analysis was conducted on those occupation requiring higher qualifications and skills. Therefore, it has been confirmed that the shortages in technology and engineering workforce over all and those with higher qualifications are difficult to fill up due to the shortage of specific skills, qualifications, or experience and to be characterized as skill-shortage vacancies. Furthermore, locating in an industrial complex was significant if the overall technology and engineering workforce was taken into account. Inversely, relative wages were shown to be significant only to the more skilled counterpart. Also the higher the number of local small- and medium-sized businesses and the supply of college graduates, the lower the potential shortage.