The Information Problem: Big Data as a Solution for Labour Market Analysis
| Autor | Jeisson Cárdenas Rubio |
| Páginas | 66-96 |
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A WEB -BASE D APPRO ACH TO M E A SU R E S KILL MISM ATCHE S AND S KILL S PROFI LES FO R A DEV ELOPI NG COUN TRY
4. The Information Problem:
Big Data as a Solution for
Labour Market Analysis
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4.1. Introduction
“More and better d ata” is a common claim of researcher s and policymakers as
a prerequisite to design public policies suc h as tackling skill mismatch issues
(Cedefop 2010; OECD 2017b; Willia ms 2004). Information collec tion about labour
demand through surveys i nvolves statisticians, interv iewers, and a sample of
companies or ind ividuals available a nd willing to respond. T he cost of this kind
of projects is relat ively high, in terms of res ources and time, and ca n discourage
countries (especially with low budgets) from collecting a nd analysing vacancy
data. Addit ionally, even if a survey is ca rried out, the infor mation obtained mig ht
not be detailed enough to analyse which skills or occupations are in demand
among different industr ies or regions (Handel 2012; OECD 2016d).
Current ly, with t he proliferation of the internet and h igher-capacity elec-
tronic devices , large amounts of informat ion about the be haviour of different
agents are being st ored daily. The storage of all thi s information has un locked
new territor ies for research in different areas of knowledge. For instance,
Edelman (2012) and Askitas and Zimmermann (2015) detail several research
examples usi ng Big Data that have provided di fferent applications for resea rch in
micro- and ma croeconomics, labour and demog raphic economics, public eco-
nomics, health, education, and welfare, among others.
Big Data may be a way to overcome the l imitations of existi ng skills anal-
ysis. More specifically, online job porta ls are a promising source of valuable
information about labour demand . Thus, the second sec tion of this chapter
defines Big Data, followed by an analysis of how Big Data might fill in forma-
tion gaps in labour de mand and supply to address labour market policies and
research. T he fourth section discu sses the potential uses of in formation from
job portals to t ackle skill mism atches (skill shortages). Big Data in spe cific job
portals ha s certain limitations and, for this re ason, the fifth section di scusses
these limitations and indicate s some caveats when using this kind of data
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