What can online data tell us about the labour market? Pawel Adrjan - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

ESCoE COVID-19 ECONOMIC MEASUREMENT WEBINARS What can online data tell us about the labour market? Pawel Adrjan Starting at 11.30AM

What can online data tell us about the labour market?

11 June 2020

Pawel Adrjan

He Head of

• f EME

MEA Research, Indeed @P @Paw awel elAdrjan an

Reamonn Lydon

Senior Advisor, Central Bank k of Ireland @r @rlydon2

Online labour market data | Introduction

• COVID-19 and measures to contain it have impacted the labour market
• But how?
• Standard surveys often lag market developments
• Supplementary sources provide timely information on (some aspects of) the

labour market during the crisis

• Data on government benefit schemes
• New, faster surveys
• Private-sector data

Introduction

Online labour market data | Introduction

Today’s presentation

What can data on online vacancies and job search tell us about the labour market? 1. What data are available? 2. How has COVID-19 impacted online indicators of labour supply and demand? 3. How are posted wages responding to current labour market conditions?

Online labour market data | Introduction

Data

• Indeed is the world’s #1 job site (ComScore, March 2019) with over 250 million

monthly unique visitors (Google Analytics, September 2018) and presence in over 60 countries

• In the UK:
• #1 job site (SimilarWeb, April 2020)
• 500 thousand new jobs added each month (Q1 2020)
• Nearly 6 out of 10 online jobseekers come to Indeed every month (ComScore,

February 2019)

• Almost 25 million total visits per month (SimilarWeb, April 2020)
• 4.5 million CVs uploaded or updated in the 12 months to June 2020

Online labour market data | Introduction

Impact of COVID-19

• n the

labour market

• UK job postings down 61% on last year’s trend (as of 5 Jun)
• Impact of crisis on job postings differs by occupation
• Food preparation and service: down 89%
• Nursing: down ‘only’ 18%
• UK job postings hit harder and slower to recover than France,

Germany, Italy, US

• Role of industrial structure, lockdown restrictions and

government schemes

• The tight labour market is over
• But imbalances between demand from employers and

interest from jobseekers vary across occupations

• Employers and jobseekers in different sectors are

experiencing this labour market differently

• Compositional shifts have led to a rise in the average posted

wage

Online labour market data | Introduction

References

Impact of COVID-19 on vacancies

• Indeed Hiring Lab, www.hiringlab.org
• Adrjan and Lydon (2020), “Covid-19 and the global labour market: Impact on job

postings”, Central Bank of Ireland Economic Letters, Vol. 2020. No. 3 Labour market tightness and wages

• Adrjan and Lydon (2019), “Clicks and jobs: measuring labour market tightness using
• nline data”, Central Bank of Ireland Economic Letters, Vol. 2019. No. 6

I would like to thank Adhi Rajaprabhakaran, Alassane-Anand Ndour and Jack Kennedy for excellent research assistance.

Online labour market data | Introduction

• 1. What data are available?

1. What data are available? 2. How are they generated? 3. How do they complement surveys published by statistical agencies?

Online labour market data

Online labour market data | Data

What data are available?

Job postings / vacancies à Indicator of labour demand Searches, clicks, CVs à Potential labour supply Posted wages à Advertised price of labour

Online labour market data | Introduction

Delivery driver Leeds

Online labour market data | Data

Searches Job postings Posted wages CVs Clicks on search results

Online labour market data | Data

Source: Adrjan and Lydon (2019)

Online labour market data | Data

Online labour market data | Data

Source: UK version of Table 2 in Adrjan and Lydon (2019)

Online labour market data | Data

Job titles matter

• Matching jobseekers to vacancies
• Job search terms are often detailed: maths teacher, PE teacher, Spanish teacher
• Marinescu and Wolthoff (2020): “the power of [job title] words in the matching

process”

• Policy applications
• UK Migration Advisory Committee (2019):

Online labour market data | Data

• Labour supply and demand
• Vacancy trends (UK vs. other countries)
• Labour market tightness
• Wages

Next: Impact of COVID-19 on the labour market

Online labour market data | Data

• 2. How has COVID-19 impacted online indicators
• f labour supply and demand?

Online labour market data | Supply and demand

Regular updates available at www.hiringlab.org/uk

Online labour market data | Supply and demand

Online labour market data | Supply and demand

Online labour market data | Supply and demand

Switzerland Germany Belgium Sweden Austria Netherlands US Spain Finland France Italy Ireland Portugal Canada UK Japan

• 0.4
• 0.35
• 0.3
• 0.25
• 0.2
• 0.15
• 0.1
• 0.95
• 0.85
• 0.75
• 0.65
• 0.55
• 0.45

Change in job posting trend Change in apple mobility index (Feb average-v-March-May low)

Change in postings and apple mobility trends

Switzerland Germany Belgium Sweden Hungary Austria Netherlands United States Spain Finland France Denmark Ireland Portugal Canada United Kingdom Japan

• 0.4
• 0.35
• 0.3
• 0.25
• 0.2
• 0.15
• 0.1

40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Change in job posting trend Blavatnik Stringency index (20 March to 20 April average)

Change in postings and severity of restrictions

Hale et al. (2020) for stringency index Apple mobility index time-series to 10 May downloaded from kieranhealy.org

Are tighter restrictions associated with lower demand for new workers?

Industrial composition matters

Online labour market data | Supply and demand

• Countries with more jobs with low ‘work-from-home potential’ saw bigger declines
• Work-from-home potential by occupation based on Dingel and Neiman (2020)

Online labour market data | Supply and demand

• Approaches to easing lockdown restrictions may matter (rules, timing, sectors)
• But we aren’t seeing job postings rise nearly as fast as the Apple mobility index
• Other factors probably at play:
• Uncertainty (health, economic)
• Impact of government schemes on employer behaviour
• Having to re-hire from unemployment vs. ability to recall employees from

furlough UK case:

• High jobseeker interest in sectors that are reopening (consistent with rising mobility)
• But limited pick-up in job postings even in those sectors

Several possible reasons for different recovery trends across countries

Online labour market data | Supply and demand

Online labour market data | Supply and demand

Online labour market data | Supply and demand

Online labour market data | Supply and demand

• Labour market tightness
• ONS data
• Clicks on Indeed
• Wages

Next: Potential labour supply

Online labour market data | Data

Online labour market data | Supply and demand

Online labour market data | Supply and demand

• In Adrjan and Lydon (2019) we

measure labour market tightness using clicks per job posting

• Informative for wages over and

above traditional measures such as unemployment

• We can measure changes in

tightness during the COVID-19 crisis at the level of individual job titles

Online labour market data | Supply and demand

• 3. How are posted wages responding

to current labour market conditions?

Online labour market data | Wages

Online labour market data | Wages

Impact of COVID-19

• n the

labour market

• UK job postings down 61% on last year’s trend (as of 5 Jun)
• Impact of crisis on job postings differs by occupation
• Food preparation and service: down 89%
• Nursing: down ‘only’ 18%
• UK job postings hit harder and slower to recover than France,

Germany, Italy, US

• Role of industrial structure, lockdown restrictions and

government schemes

• The tight labour market is over
• But the relationship between demand from employers

and interest from jobseekers varies across occupations

• Employers and jobseekers in different sectors are

experiencing this labour market differently

• Compositional shifts have led to a rise in the average posted

wage

Online labour market data | Conclusions

Thank you

@PawelAdrjan padrjan@indeed.com hiringlab.org/uk/blog/category/coronavirus