Using earnings (ASHE) and recruitment (LFS) to visualise expressed demand for skills and occupations Paul Bivand Centre for Economic & Social Inclusion

What’s expressed demand? Employers pay earnings packages they need to recruit, retain and motivate staff Relative pay therefore encodes some features of expressed demand So do changes in relative pay, and changes in numbers employed

Only two charts My first chart shows ASHE annual earnings by occupation Showing the earnings distribution by boxplots – amended so the hinges are quartiles and the whiskers are deciles Ordered the occupations by median pay I’ve then coloured the fill of each box

Boxplot fills There are several useful fills that could be used Number of employees Occupations of interest (e.g. STEM occupations) I’ve analysed the Labour Force Survey for the one I’ve chosen

Labour Force Survey analysis We now have eight quarters of LFS coded to SOC million (weighted) instances of jobs starting in the previous 3 months – recruits Have estimated the qualification level of recruits Information for 353 out of digit occupation groups

This tells us What is the pay range for each occupation – what employers are paying What qualifications are held by job starters Could have coloured by: Numbers of job starters – giving a different picture

This is just a static analysis ASHE gives us the opportunity to measure change However, the change in Occupation Classification means that any medium- term change can only be done under SOC 2000 Single year changes contain random effects (like when pay reviews happen early or late)

Relative rises and falls We have plotted the change in earnings and in ASHE employee numbers We have coloured the occupations by the qualification level of new job entrants in – with red as high qualified this time

What does this show? Top right quadrant – jobs rising in pay and in numbers – in demand (though some minimum wage jobs) Bottom right quadrant – jobs rising in numbers but relatively dropping in pay – market is supplying enough new skills Top left quadrant – dropping numbers but rising relative pay – employers making a market response to recruit when careers more risky

And what about the bottom left? Falling relative pay and falling numbers Skilled trades Process, plant workers Secretarial And some STEM occupations – particularly technicians Rational to avoid these occupations