Employers' Skill Preferences across Europe: Between Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Skills

This article analyses online job advertisements to identify skills that are demanded in selected low- and medium-skilled occupations. We explore data from the publicly administered cross-European EURES job search portal and quantify the different cognitive and non-cognitive skills requested by employers in small European economies. While we find that the service sector demands non-cognitive skills more than other types of occupation, the skill-mix demanded is very diverse across countries, implying that other domestic factors shape how demand is formulated. Our work shows that online portals can become a useful source for studying employers' demand at the micro-level to inform employment, education and training policies.