The need for requalification in the Spanish labour market: mapping employment with workplace skills

Abstract

This study addresses the empirical relationship between job tasks and employment share changes in Spain for the period 1997-2019. To do so, we use the novel European representative data on skills/tasks ESCO. Overall, we find a need for requalification in the Spanish workforce. We show that changes in employment shares are heterogeneously distributed by task content – there is an overall decline in the demand for routine-manual skills, while technological and social interaction skills have emerged. Next, we contrast empirically the results of the recent literature that has used the United States O*NET data. We obtain consistent results: Routine-manual intensive occupations are declining in employment share relative to non-routine cognitive occupations. Further, we find that different groups have adapted differently to these changes. Older workers are trapped in declining occupations for reasons unrelated to the tasks performed, while men are trapped in declining occupations because they hold skills of declining demand. Last, by doing a case-by-case analysis we identify workers who may need of job reallocation. For them we obtain the optimal pathway towards emerging occupations, so that the gap in terms of tasks is minimized. Following this, we find for the displaced workers the specific requalification needed to face this job reallocation.