Wage growth of less educated workers: the importance of social skills

Philippe Aghion, Antonin Bergeaud, Richard Blundell and Rachel Griffith

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: We use matched employee–employer data from the UK to investigate the importance of social skills – in particular, teamwork and communication with co-workers – as a driver of wage growth for workers with lower formal education. We find that in social skill tasks, a significant fraction of less educated workers enjoy wage progression with tenure, and higher returns in firms with more educated co-workers. We rationalise these dynamics through a model in which social skills – initially opaque to both employee and employer – are learned about over time through complementarity with co-workers.

Keywords: firm pay premium; social skills; teamwork; tenure-wage profiles; wage growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 J31 L25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2026-09-21
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Published in Fiscal Studies, 21, September, 2026. ISSN: 0143-5671

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:141241

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