CEU economist wins share of €12.7M ERC labor markets grant

Andrea Weber, a professor of economics at Central European University in Vienna, is part of a four-economist team awarded a €12.7 million European Research Council Synergy Grant. The six-year project will study why labor shortages and worker underemployment coexist across Europe and whether better skills matching and mobility can ease the gap.

Why it matters: - Europe is facing labor shortages at the same time as unemployment and underused worker skills. - The project could help explain a mismatch that affects productivity, wages, inequality and essential public services. - The findings may be especially relevant for Austria and Central and Eastern Europe, where cross-border mobility matters.

What happened: - Andrea Weber, professor of economics at Central European University, won a share of a €12.7 million European Research Council Synergy Grant. - The six-year project is called “Labor Shortages: Measurement, Mismatch, and Mobility” (LabShort). - The grant brings together four lead economists from CEU, the Institute for Fiscal Studies in London, University College London, and the NHH Norwegian School of Economics. - The project is led by Richard Blundell, with Fabien Postel Vinay, Andrea Weber and Kjell Salvanes as the other principal investigators.

The details: - LabShort will examine why labor shortages and underemployment coexist across Europe. - The researchers will study how worker skills can be better matched with employer demand. - The project will analyze whether regional and cross-border mobility can reduce labor market imbalances. - The team will develop new measures of skill and geographic mismatch in labor markets. - The research will also look at how employers and workers shape job search, hiring and skill acquisition expectations. - The work will draw on cross-country data linkages, new surveys and economic theory. - Senior researchers on the project include Monica Costa-Dias, Attila Lindner, Miklos Koren, Katrine Loeken and Alexander Willen. - The wider team also includes researchers from the Institut des Politiques Publiques in France and the e61 Institute in Australia.

Between the lines: - Europe’s labor problem is no longer just about job vacancies or unemployment separately; the core issue is matching people, skills and geography more effectively. - AI and other technologies may deepen the mismatch by changing the skills employers need. - Weber said the ERC grant creates a rare opportunity to study labor markets at scale and that the work is highly relevant to regional inequality.

What's next: - The LabShort team will spend six years producing new measures, data and analysis on labor shortages and mobility. - The researchers are expected to test whether better matching and movement across regions and borders can ease shortages. - CEU said Weber’s work is part of the university’s broader research profile in Vienna and Budapest.

The bottom line: - The grant gives a top European research team unusual firepower to study one of the continent’s most urgent labor market problems.