Abstract
Making use of an international survey that directly assesses the cognitive skills of the participants, I study the effect of skills on employment in 32 countries. On average, a one-standard-deviation increase in numeracy is associated with an 8.4 percentage-point increase in the probability of being employed, reducing the probability of being out of the labor force and unemployed by 6.4 and 2.1 percentage points, respectively. After controlling for numeracy, the estimated employment effect of years in education falls by one-third from 2.7 to 1.8 percentage points. Notably, the employment effect of skills is more pronounced in countries with higher unemployment.