Education and insertion in sectors by technogical intensity: an analysis from the PNADC in the period from 2012 to 2019

Abstract

This article seeks to illustrate that the increase in schooling has not represented gains in learning and productivity, because years of study have not translated into the development of skills relevant to the job market. The learning and competence building process faces two obstacles that are connected: 1) low proportion of individuals with higher education; 2) lack of spaces in which graduates find work to apply the knowledge acquired, to continue the learning process (Arocena and Sutz, 2010). For this purpose, data from the PNAD Continua (PNADC/IBGE) for the period from 2012 to 2019 are used as a proxy for the supply of qualified labor. The industrial sectors of companies were classified by the intensity of technological activity according to OECD taxonomy. Multinomial logit models were estimated, both for those employed in the industry and in the services sector. The results indicate that greater schooling and professional qualification contribute to the insertion of the worker in sectors of greater technological intensity, favoring, therefore, the continuity of the learning process. In turn, the data also show the macroeconomic and cyclical effects on the microeconomic decisions of companies, which reflected in the increased probability of insertion of workers in sectors of lower technological intensity, for any level of education, after 2015.