Research on Future Skill Demands A Workshop Summary (2008) / Chapter Skim
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5 Promising New Data and Research Methods
5 Promising New Data and Research Methods
Pages 44-62
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FEASIBILITY OF USING O* NET TO STUDY SKILL CHANGES Industrial/organizational psychologist Suzanne Tsacoumis provided an overview of the Occupational Information Network (O*
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, organizes job information into six broad categories (see Figure 5-1)
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However, the center obtains information on abilities from a different source -- trained job analysts, who review the other types of updated information provided by the job incumbents and rate the ability levels required for various jobs. This approach was selected because "the constructs that are represented by .
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NET data with BLS occupational projections in order to project future skill demands and potential skill gaps in different states. Using this approach, the state of Illinois recently projected potential shortages of 15 skills in the year 2012; the largest projected skill shortages are in reading comprehension, active listening, speaking, and writing (Ginsburg and Robinson, 2006)
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For example, on the language abilities scale, reading a street sign is rated at 2, as a low-level task, writing a letter of recommendation or giving multistep instructions is rated at 4, a medium level, and the high level task of giving a lecture on a technical subject is rated 6. Next, Elliott said, he looked for recent articles in the journal Artificial Intelligence that described active research programs in enough detail to be compared with the abilities ratings in O*
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NET measures of social and emotional skills and examining current research aimed at engaging computers in social and emotional reasoning and interaction. Elliott concluded that the real bottom line of his analysis is that projecting future computer abilities is a very important part of any effort to project future skill demands.
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50 RESEARCH ON FUTURE SKILL DEMANDS TABLE 5-1 Projected Displacement by 2030 in Major Occupational Groups Percentage Percentage of Total Displaced Major Occupational Group Employment Within Group 11-0000 Management 6 41 13-0000 Business and financial 3 32 operations 15-0000 Computer and mathematical 2 21 science 17-0000 Architecture and engineering 2 11 19-0000 Life, physical, and social science 1 10 21-0000 Community and social services 2 36 23-0000 Legal 1 6 25-0000 Education, training, and library 6 74 27-0000 Arts, design, entertainment, 2 50 sports, and media 29-0000 Health care practitioners and 5 10 technical 31-0000 Health care support 2 29 33-0000 Protective service 2 16 35-0000 Food preparation and serving 8 88 related 37-0000 Building and grounds cleaning 4 78 and maintenance 39-0000 Personal care and service 3 81 41-0000 Sales and related 11 93 43-0000 Office and administrative 17 90 support 45-0000 Farming, fishing, and forestry 1 43 47-0000 Construction and extraction 5 39 49-0000 Installation, maintenance, and 4 12 repair 51-0000 Production 7 53 53-0000 Transportation and material 7 64 moving TOTAL 100 60 NOTE: This table projects the portion of 2004 employment vulnerable to displacement by computers given the current skill sets used in each major occupational group. It does not reflect changes to employment that might occur from restructuring occupations toward higher level skills.
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First, Spenner questioned the assumption that the exponential increase in computer processing power observed over the past century (Moravec, 1999) would continue unabated over the next few decades.
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To address this problem, Spenner suggested inviting expert job analysts to score and rate the selected articles about artificial intelligence "as though they were scoring and rating an occupation." Fifth, Spenner described weaknesses in the model of technological and occupational change in the pilot study. In this model, he said, technology is adopted "swiftly, smoothly, and efficiently." However, studies of the history of adoption of other technologies, ranging from railroads to electricity to flexible manufacturing systems, illuminate a more "jerky, discontinuous, and problematic" process (Cyert and Mowery, 1988; Granovetter and McGuire, 1998)
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said he had just finished collecting data in the first wave of a new survey focusing on skills, technology, and management practices, known as the STAMP survey (Handel, 2007a, 2007b)
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, noting that it addresses cognitive skills that would be of interest to educators -- such as reading and writing and mathematics -- and also interpersonal job tasks and physical job tasks. The survey also addresses questions about worker autonomy and includes an extensive battery of items on computer and noncomputer technology.
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PROMISING NEW DATA AND RESEARCH METHODS 55 BOX 5-1 Content of the STAMP Survey Skill and Task Requirements Cognitive skills Math, reading, writing, documents Problem-solving Education and training requirements Interpersonal job tasks Physical job tasks Supervision, Autonomy, Authority Closeness of supervision, autonomy, repetitiveness Supervisory responsibilities over others Decision-making authority over organizational policies Computer and Other Technology Machinery and electronic equipment Mechanical and electronics knowledge Set-up, maintenance, and repair Equipment and tool programming Computers Frequency of use Use of 14 specific applications Use of advanced program features, specific and new software Training times Complexity of computer skills required Adequacy of respondents' computer skills Computer experience of nonusers in prior jobs Employee Involvement Job rotation, cross-training, pay for skill Formal quality control program Teams activity levels, responsibilities, and decision-making authority Bonus and stock compensation Job Downgrading Downsizing, outsourcing, technological displacement Promotion opportunity Work load, pace, and stress Reductions in pay and retirement and health benefits Strike activity Job Satisfaction SOURCE: Handel (2007a)
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could be calibrated against workers' reported use of reading, writing, and mathematics on the job from the STAMP survey. Response Sociologist Arne Kalleberg (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
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Fourth, Kalleberg predicted that, when Handel submitted papers to journals, he would be asked questions about causality, such as, "Does skill cause wages or do wages cause skill? " To make causal arguments, Kalleberg suggested drawing on qualitative data.
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DISCUSSION Moderator Sager asked Elliott whether it would be possible to retrospectively apply his method to assess how accurately it might have forecast past changes in technology and employment. He also suggested that the method might be more successful at predicting that an occupation was going to "experience turmoil" than at predicting that an occupation would be completely "annihilated." Elliott responded that Spenner's use of the term "annihilated" suggested that there would be 60 percent unemployment as a result of new computer capabilities, but this did not accurately describe his findings.
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First, he asked why Elliott had proposed that computers would have an absolute advantage over humans within a certain time frame and had not considered the comparative advantage of human labor. He noted that, in a standard economic model, there are gains from trade between two individuals, even when one has an absolute advantage in multiple activities.
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Ladd said that software is not yet capable of responding to the variation in what children need to know and be able to do. Elliott responded that his model indicates that teachers currently use cognitive abilities that "lie within research that is being done in computer science" and that software programs using the full range of teachers' abilities would be developed over the coming two decades.
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NET data to analyze skill changes over time -- might be used to project changes much closer in time, with stronger inferences. Emphasizing the importance of understanding these trade-offs, he said he would place the papers on future skill demands in knowledge work and service work somewhere in the middle.
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NET abilities for a particular occupation, to see how much they agree about which abilities were most and least important. In addition, it is possible to compare ratings of a particular ability across different jobs.
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