IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp8555.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Using Internet Data to Analyse the Labour Market: A Methodological Enquiry

Author

Listed:
  • Kureková, Lucia Mýtna

    (Slovak Academy of Sciences)

  • Beblavy, Miroslav

    (Center for European Policy Studies (CEPS))

  • Thum, Anna-Elisabeth

    (Center for European Policy Studies (CEPS))

Abstract

With the growth of the Internet, online job portals have become an important medium for job matching. This paper focuses on methodological issues arising from the usage of online job vacancy data and voluntary web-based surveys to analyse the labour market. In addition to providing a comprehensive review of the literature based on online data, we highlight the advantages and possible disadvantages of using online data and suggest strategies for overcoming selected methodological issues. We underline the difficulties in adjusting for representativeness of online job vacancies, but nevertheless argue that this rich source of data should be exploited.

Suggested Citation

  • Kureková, Lucia Mýtna & Beblavy, Miroslav & Thum, Anna-Elisabeth, 2014. "Using Internet Data to Analyse the Labour Market: A Methodological Enquiry," IZA Discussion Papers 8555, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8555
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp8555.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:aia:aiaswp:wp60 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. repec:wyi:journl:002164 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Kailing Shen & Peter Kuhn, 2013. "Do Chinese Employers Avoid Hiring Overqualified Workers? Evidence from an Internet Job Board," Research in Labor Economics, in: Labor Market Issues in China, pages 1-30, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    4. Nikolaos Askitas & Klaus F. Zimmermann, 2009. "Google Econometrics and Unemployment Forecasting," Applied Economics Quarterly (formerly: Konjunkturpolitik), Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 55(2), pages 107-120.
    5. van Ours, Jan & Ridder, Geert, 1992. "Vacancies and the Recruitment of New Employees," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 10(2), pages 138-155, April.
    6. repec:aia:aiaswp:wp76 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Constantin Mang, 2012. "Online Job Search and Matching Quality," ifo Working Paper Series 147, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    8. Kea Tijdens & Brian Fabo, 2014. "Using Web Data to Measure the Demand for Skills," Discussion Papers 21, Central European Labour Studies Institute (CELSI).
    9. Benjamin Edelman, 2012. "Using Internet Data for Economic Research," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 26(2), pages 189-206, Spring.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Stefano Visintin & Kea Tijdens & Maarten van Klaveren, 2015. "Skill mismatch among migrant workers: evidence from a large multi-country dataset," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-34, December.
    2. Nikolaos Askitas & Klaus F. Zimmermann, 2015. "The internet as a data source for advancement in social sciences," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 36(1), pages 2-12, April.
    3. Raymundo M. Campos-Vázquez & Julio César Martínez Sánchez, 2024. "Habilidades buscadas por las empresas en el mercado laboral mexicano: un análisis de las ofertas laborales publicadas en internet/Skills sought by companies in the Mexican labor market: An analysis o," Estudios Económicos, El Colegio de México, Centro de Estudios Económicos, vol. 39(2), pages 243–278-2.
    4. Nuarpear Lekfuangfu & Voraprapa Nakavachara & Paphatsorn Sawaengsuksant, 2017. "Glancing at Labour Market Mismatch with User-generated Internet Data," PIER Discussion Papers 53, Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research.
    5. Beblavý, Miroslav & Fabo, Brian & Lenaerts, Karolien, 2016. "Skills Requirements for the 30 Most-Frequently Advertised Occupations in the United States: An analysis based on online vacancy data," CEPS Papers 11406, Centre for European Policy Studies.
    6. Beblavý, Miroslav & Fabo, Brian & Lenaerts, Karolien, 2016. "Demand for Digital Skills in the US Labour Market: The IT Skills Pyramid," CEPS Papers 12055, Centre for European Policy Studies.
    7. Sandra M. Leitner & Oliver Reiter, 2020. "Employers’ Skills Requirements in the Austrian Labour Market: On the Relative Importance of ICT, Cognitive and Non-cognitive Skills over the Past 15 Years," wiiw Working Papers 190, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lucia Kureková & Miroslav Beblavý & Anna Thum-Thysen, 2015. "Using online vacancies and web surveys to analyse the labour market: a methodological inquiry," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-20, December.
    2. Blazquez, Desamparados & Domenech, Josep, 2018. "Big Data sources and methods for social and economic analyses," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 99-113.
    3. D’Amuri, Francesco & Marcucci, Juri, 2017. "The predictive power of Google searches in forecasting US unemployment," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 801-816.
    4. Simionescu, Mihaela & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 2017. "Big Data and Unemployment Analysis," GLO Discussion Paper Series 81, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    5. Asgari, Mahdi & Nemati, Mehdi & Zheng, Yuqing, 2018. "Nowcasting Food Stock Movement using Food Safety Related Web Search Queries," 2018 Annual Meeting, February 2-6, 2018, Jacksonville, Florida 266323, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    6. Fabo, B., 2017. "Towards an understanding of job matching using web data," Other publications TiSEM b8b877f2-ae6a-495f-b6cc-9, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    7. Dean Fantazzini, 2014. "Nowcasting and Forecasting the Monthly Food Stamps Data in the US Using Online Search Data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(11), pages 1-27, November.
    8. Brodeur, Abel & Clark, Andrew E. & Fleche, Sarah & Powdthavee, Nattavudh, 2021. "COVID-19, lockdowns and well-being: Evidence from Google Trends," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    9. Federico Di Pace & Matthias Hertweck, 2019. "Labor Market Frictions, Monetary Policy, and Durable Goods," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 32, pages 274-304, April.
    10. Mathan Satchi & Jonathan Temple, 2006. "Growth and labour markets in developing countries," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 06/581, School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
    11. Oyer, Paul & Schaefer, Scott, 2011. "Personnel Economics: Hiring and Incentives," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 20, pages 1769-1823, Elsevier.
    12. Bentzen, Jeanet Sinding, 2021. "In crisis, we pray: Religiosity and the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 541-583.
    13. Jacques Bughin, 2015. "Google searches and twitter mood: nowcasting telecom sales performance," Netnomics, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 87-105, August.
    14. Christoph Safferling & Aaron Lowen, 2011. "Economics in the Kingdom of Loathing: Analysis of Virtual Market Data," Working Paper Series of the Department of Economics, University of Konstanz 2011-30, Department of Economics, University of Konstanz.
    15. Lozej, Matija, 2019. "Economic migration and business cycles in a small open economy with matching frictions," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 604-620.
    16. Vosen, Simeon & Schmidt, Torsten, 2012. "A monthly consumption indicator for Germany based on Internet search query data," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 19(7), pages 683-687.
    17. Manning, Alan, 1999. "Pretty vacant: recruitment in low wage labour markets," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20231, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Ante FARM, 2020. "Measuring the effect of matching problems on unemployment," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 159(2), pages 243-258, June.
    19. D'Amuri, Francesco & Marcucci, Juri, 2009. "‘Google it!’ Forecasting the US unemployment rate with a Google job search index," ISER Working Paper Series 2009-32, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    20. Chien-jung Ting & Yi-Long Hsiao, 2022. "Nowcasting the GDP in Taiwan and the Real-Time Tourism Data," Advances in Management and Applied Economics, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 12(3), pages 1-2.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    internet; job; labour market; matching; methodology; occupation; online; representativeness; vacancy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E4 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates
    • J2 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8555. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.