Demand for soft skills in industrial occupations: Evidence from blue-collar positions in Brazil

Soft skills like problem-solving, adaptability, and teamwork are increasingly important in today’s changing job market. As industries adjust to technological and demographic changes, workers’ skill profiles may not align with employer needs. While soft skills are widely recognized in service and managerial roles, their role in industrial jobs—prevalent in many regions worldwide—remains less understood. This project investigates how industrial firms in Brazil value technical and soft skills and how mismatches between worker skills and employer preferences arise. We link administrative education and employment data to examine the extent to which soft skill differences explain wage disparities between workers, conduct a field experiment with employers to estimate how they trade off technical and soft skills under different conditions, and survey students and technical-vocational graduates to measure beliefs, perceived skill acquisition barriers, and search frictions. The findings will inform workforce training policies by clarifying when, where, and why soft skills matter for industrial employment outcomes.