Is this a skill which i see before me? The challenge of measuring skills shortages

Key Findings: Research points to long-standing ambiguity over the notion of skills and how they are defined. Skills shortages have traditionally been measured by estimating the supply and demand shifts of certain œskill proxies, such as educational qualifications, fields of study, and occupations; however, this approach does not adequately depict the diverse and rapidly changing skill needs of the Canadian economy. Technical advances in data analysis (i.e., machine learning, natural language processing, and web scraping) facilitate the use of data from online job postings for gaining insight into skills shortages. Observing the frequency, content, and duration of these postings, as well as job seeker profiles provides an opportunity to improve our understanding of the changing nature of jobs. The availability of online data, combined with a Canadian skills and competency taxonomy, creates an opportunity to map skills to the Canadian National Occupational Classification (NOC) system, which will contribute to ensuring that Canadians have the right skills to succeed.