Adaptively selecting occupations to detect skill shortages from online job ads
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This research develops a data-driven method to generate sets of highly similar skills based on a set of seed skills using online job advertisements (ads) data. This provides researchers with a novel method to adaptively select occupations based on granular skills data. We apply this adaptive skills similarity technique to a dataset of over 6.7 million Australian job ads in order to identify occupations with the highest proportions of Data Science and Analytics (DSA) skills. This uncovers 306,577 DSA job ads across 23 occupational classes from 2012-2019. We then propose five variables for detecting skill shortages from online job ads: (1) posting frequency; (2) salary levels; (3) education requirements; (4) experience demands; and (5) job ad posting predictability. This contributes further evidence to the goal of detecting skills shortages in real-time. In conducting this analysis, we also find strong evidence of skills shortages in Australia for highly technical DSA skills and occupations. These results provide insights to Data Science researchers, educators, and policy-makers from other advanced economies about the types of skills that should be cultivated to meet growing DSA labour demands in the future.
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