Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Skills for Jobs database

Improving the alignment between the skills required by employers and those of workers is becoming increasingly complicated. Not only does digitalisation, globalisation and the rapid ageing of the population continue to affect the demand for and supply of competition, but the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing skills shortages, especially in the health sector. In addition, many countries are implementing measures to support the green transition, which is changing the demand for skills.

In light of these changes, it is increasingly important to ensure that the skills of workers and individuals are aligned with the needs of the labour market. Skills imbalances, such as shortages (when it is difficult to find the right ones in today's labour market) or surpluses (when certain skills are in excess in the labour market relative to demand and are therefore easy to find), can slow down the adoption of new technologies, cause production delays, increase job turnover and reduce productivity. People who do not possess the "right" skills would also face poor outcomes in the labour market.

The OECD Skills for Jobs database is an analytical tool designed for policymakers, professionals and the general public to understand where gaps arise between the supply of and demand for skills, providing information at the national level for a wide variety of skill categories, including cognitive, social and physical. Since its first publication in 2017, the database has significantly expanded its national coverage. The OECD Skills for Jobs 2022 database covers 43 OECD countries and associated economies worldwide. It is based on a new methodology for calculating skills requirements in occupations, which takes advantage of information from online job offers, unlike the previous era, which used expert judgment according to the US O*NET database. This allows the mapping between skill and occupation to vary over time, capturing changing requirements within occupations in a timely manner. In addition, the mapping is now based on information from six English-speaking countries (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States), rather than just American information. Finally, the database now also includes digital skills.

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