An Investigation of Skill Requirements in the Labor Market: Evidence from Online Job Posting in China

Skill requirements of occupations have changed rapidly in the recent labor market because of technological innovations such as automation and artificial intelligence (AI hereafter). In this paper, we collect millions of job vacancy data with detailed job skill requirements from one of the biggest Chinese online job posting websites. We find that social skills may not significantly correlate to wages. The results are the opposite of those documented in the U.S. labor market. In contrast, some skills, such as cognitive and professional computer skills, significantly correlate to wages. Moreover, cognitive and professional computer skills are complementary in jobs since those jobs requiring both skills offer higher wages to employees