Big Data for Labour Market Information – focus on data from online job vacancies – training workshop (Eastern Partnership Platform 4 Work Programme for members of the “Make it Match” experts’ network)

Under the framework of Eastern Partnership (EaP) multilateral cooperation, notably Platform 4 (People to People), the European Commission and ETF co-organise a training workshop on 21-22 November 2019, in partnership with the University Milano-Biccoca and TabulaeX. Participants of the “Make it Match” experts network of EaP, which ETF supports since 2014, expressed high interest to learn more on the application of Big Data analytics in the context of Labour Market information (LMI). At several workshops of the network in 2016-2019, participants had exposure to concepts and examples of how Big Data can be explored for analysis of labour market and skills dynamics. This workshop provides a deeper understanding of the concepts, value, methodological approach and architecture solutions of Big Data for LMI (focus on OJV data). The publication in June 2019 of the synthetic handbook “Big Data for Labour Market Intelligence – a brief introductory guide”1 offers new possibilities for dissemination of well systematised information on the potentialities, requirements, the approach and the concrete architectural solutions for data gathering from online job vacancies (OJV) websites, classification, analysis and visualisation. To undertake this initiative ETF worked together with data scientists and researchers of CRISP2 , the research centre of the University Milano-Bicocca. Big Data analytics offer new possibilities to improve labour market information and deliver real-time and fine-grained skills analysis and insights for users. Big Data is all around us. Big Data is characterised by volume, variety, velocity and eventually - value. Machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms, combined with immense computing power of anytime and anywhere allow data science to exploit certain Big Data sources, which have large potential to supplement and enrich conventional LMI: it is the case of online job vacancies (OJVs) managed by a large variety of online job portals and boards. OJVs are a rich source of information about the skills and other job requirements that employers require, which is difficult to gather via other conventional methods. Data from OJVs does not replace other types of labour market information, but add value and can be combined with conventional statistical data.

Eight previous thematic workshops took place in June 2014 (Turin), in June 2015 (Helsinki), in November 2015 (Paris), in June 2016 (Maastricht), in November 2016 (Prague), June 2017 (Riga), September 2018 (Dublin), and June 2019 (Milan). Participants of the workshop are experts in the domain: labour market statiscs, research in labour market and skills dynamics, data / computer science and management of online job vacancies.