Using O*NET green jobs and tasks in Europe? A critical assessment based on French data[Utiliser les tâches et emplois verts d'O*NET en Europe]

In the international and European literature on green jobs, many empirical works rely on an adaptation of O*NET categorisation, that (i) identify three groups of green jobs and (ii) distinguish green from non-greens tasks. However, these useful standardised data are based – and thus dependent – on the US occupational nomenclature. Hence, applying these categorisations to other countries require a whole crosswalk process. Methods have been developed and operationalized, but none of them fully exploits all the possibilities, nor do they really assess the accuracy of these adaptations. Taking advantage of the richness of French occupational data, this article proposes a meticulous and transparent adaptation of O*NET categorisations through the ISCO-08 international nomenclature, presenting the entire methodological process in a clear and accessible manner. Besides, in France, an institution called Onemev has established an ad hoc list of green jobs, integrated within all major national statistics surveys since 2021 and covering the ‘core' of green jobs. Exploiting French Labour Force Survey data, we use this list as a benchmark for assessing the relevance of the adaptation of O*NET green categorisations. Our results reveal significant mismatches between the Onemev list and close O*NET categorisations, highlighting and documenting both conceptual and methodological shortcomings. This casts doubt on the relevance of some studies that have used the crosswalk method in a less granular and cautious way.