Accelerated demand for interpersonal skills in the Australian post-pandemic labour market

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a widespread shift to remote work, reducing the level of face-to-face interaction between workers and changing their modes and patterns of communication. This study tests whether this transformation in production processes has been associated with disruptions in the longstanding labour market trend of increasing demand for interpersonal skills. To address this question, we integrate a skills taxonomy with the text of over 12 million Australian job postings to measure skills demand trends at the aggregate and occupational levels. We find that since the start of the pandemic, there has been an acceleration in the aggregate demand for interpersonal skills. We also find a strong positive association between an occupation’s propensity for remote work and the acceleration in interpersonal skills demand for the occupation. Our findings suggest that interpersonal skills continue to grow in importance for employment in the post-pandemic, remote work friendly labour market.