The ETF Skills Lab Network of Expert's second webinar of 2023 took place on 5 April from 10:00 to 12:30 CET and was dedicated to the use of big data to support anticipation for the green and digital transitions.
In recent years, the development of big data analysis and artificial intelligence has transformed the way in which we conduct research. Sources of data which previously seemed too vast or complex can now be analysed and used to develop more accurate research models.
The ETF has been working extensively on this topic, and has notably published an introductory guide to the use of big data for labour market intelligence. Other institutions have also shared their own practical guides. These include the interagency Perspectives on policy and practice: Tapping into the potential of big data for skills policy and Cedefop’s Understanding technological change and skill needs: big data and artificial intelligence methods.
However, a lot remains to be understood about what we can expect from these tools and how best they should be used. This webinar focused on how big data can be used to support anticipation for the digital and green transitions, in particular how big data analysis can help us to identify digital or green skills and to track the evolution of skills demand.
The webinar included three presentations, with a networking session at the end. In the first presentation, Eduarda Castel Branco from the ETF presented her experience of analysing online job vacancies to identify the emergence of digital and green skills. Data from this project can be browsed freely on the ETF dashboard.
Aleksandar Kostadinov from the Macedonian Centre for International Development then shared some insights into how web scraping techniques – such as those used in the ETF publication Changing skills for a changing world: Understanding skills demand in EU neighbouring countries – can be used to gather data from job posting websites and other open data sources. The presentation will also focus on challenges in collecting web data and ways of mitigating these weaknesses through cooperation with the data holders.
Terence Hogarth from the Warwick Institute for Employment Research then gave a presentation on the changing nature of skills anticipation and the contribution of data science techniques to anticipate future skill needs.
All presentations and a recording of the event can be found below.
Please log in or sign up to comment.