The Demand for Data Skills in German Companies: Evidence from Online Job Advertisements

In addition, companies can develop data-driven business models (Gierten et al. 2021). For example, usage data of products that are already sold, such as machines, can be analyzed and used to predictively maintain machines in the future and thus reduce production downtimes. To fully exploit the potential of data, companies first and foremost have to be prepared for the data economy. For this purpose, firms have to store, manage, and use data in an efficient way. For example, different types of data – like production, financial, or personal data – should be stored digitally. Standardized quality checks and interfaces can optimize the data flow from a management perspective. Lastly, the real added value of data lies in diverse usage purposes. For example, data can be used for analysis, visualization, documentation, forecast of processes, or for sale to other firms.

Given the importance of data as an invaluable asset in modern economies, scientific research in economics and management has increasingly focused on the dynamics and repercussions of the data economy (Börner et al. 2018; Cong et al. 2021; Farboodi and Veldkamp 2021). One of the key drivers for the data economy are data-related skills, since they enable individuals and organizations to effectively collect, analyze, and utilize data to make informed decisions and create new products and services (Pappas et al. 2018). However, there is still a lack of a deeper understanding of the demand in skills and jobs that are necessary to process and strategically use the large amounts of data companies accumulate. Considering the fast pace of the advancements of the data economy and the jobs that come with it, existing research is rather sluggish in analyzing current demand in the labor market (Börner et al. 2018; European Commission 2020). In this regard, job advertisements can provide timely information on the need for specific knowledge of companies (Büchel and Mertens 2021; Pejic-Bach et al. 2020). To provide tangible and uptodate insights into the demand for jobs related to the data economy, we leverage data from online job advertisements and use a state-of-the-art machine learning approach to accurately estimate the demand for data skills in the German labor market.