The impact of open data on the employment sector

Open data provides relevant information on the state and evolution of different sectors, including employment. Employment data typically includes labour force statistics and information on employees, as well as economic, demographic or benefits-related data, interviews, salaries, vacancies, etc.   

This information can provide a clear picture of a country's economic health and the well-being of its citizens, encouraging informed decision-making. In addition, they can also serve as a basis for the creation of innovative solutions to assist in a variety of tasks.   

In this article we will review some sources of open data on job quality, as well as examples of use to show the potential benefits of re-use. 

Where to find employment data? 

In datos.gob.es a large number of data sets on employment are available, with the National Statistics Institute (INE) standing out as the national publisher. Thanks to the INE data, we can find out who is employed by sector of activity, type of studies or working day, as well as the reasons for having a part-time job. The data provided by this entity also allows us to know the employment situation of people with disabilities or by sex.   

Other sources of data where you can find information of interest is the State Public Employment Service (sepe.es), where you can find statistical data on job seekers, jobs and placements, from May 2005 to the present day. To this must be added the regional bodies, many of which have launched their own open employment data portal. This is the case of the Junta de Andalucía.  

If we are interested in making a comparison between countries, we can also turn to data from the OECD, Eurostat or the World Bank. 

All these data can be of great interest to:  

• Policy makers, to better understand and react to labour market dynamics.  

• Employers, to optimise their recruitment activities.  

• Job seekers, to make better career choices.  

• Education and training institutions, to adapt curricula to the needs of the labour market. 

Use cases of open data in the employment sector 

It is just as important to have sources of open employment data as it is to know how to interpret the information they offer about the sector. This is where reusers come in, taking advantage of this raw material to create data products that can respond to different needs. Let's look at some examples: 

• Decision-making and implementation of active policies. Active labour market policies are tools that governments use to intervene directly in the labour market, through training, guidance, incentives to hiring, etc. To do so, they need to be aware of market trends and needs. This has led many public bodies to set up observatories, such as the SEPE or the Principality of Asturias. There are also specific observatories for each area, such as the one for Equality and Employment. At the European level, Eurostat's proposal stands out: to establish requirements to create a pan-European system for the production of official statistics and specific policy analyses using open data on online job vacancies. This project has been carried out using the BDTI platform. But this field is not limited to the public sector; other actors can also submit proposals. This is the case of Iseak, a non-profit organisation that promotes a research and transfer centre in economics. Among other questions, Iseak seeks to answer questions such as: does the increase in the minimum wage lead to job destruction or why is there a gender gap in the market? 

• Accountability. All this information is not only useful for public bodies, but also for citizens to assess whether their government's employment policies are working. For this reason, many governments, such as Castilla y León, make this data available to citizens through easy-to-understand visualisations. Data journalism also plays a leading role in this field, with pieces that bring information closer to the general public, such as these examples of salaries or the level of unemployment by area. If you want to know how to make this type of visualisations, we explain them in this step-by-step exercise that characterises the demand for employment and hiring registered in Spain. 

• Boosting job opportunities. In order to bring information of interest to citizens who are actively seeking employment or new job opportunities, there are tools, such as this app for public employment calls or grants, based on open data. There are also town councils that create solutions to boost employment and the economy in their locality, such as the APP Paterna Empléate. These apps are a much simpler and more user-friendly way of consuming data than traditional job search portals. Barcelona Provincial Council has gone a step further. This tool uses AI applied to open data to, among other purposes, offer personalised services for individuals, companies and rural sectors, as well as access to job offers. The information it offers comes from notice boards, as well as from the Profile of the contracting party and various municipal websites. 

• Development of advanced solutions. Employment data can also be used to power a wide variety of machine learning use cases. One example is this US platform for financial analytics that provides data and information to investors and companies. It uses US unemployment rate data, combined with other data such as postcodes, demographics or weather data. This data can also be used to calculate default risks. 

In short, thanks to this type of data we can not only learn more about the employment situation in our environment, but also feed solutions that help boost the economy or facilitate access to job opportunities. It is therefore a category of data whose publication should be promoted by public bodies at all levels.