The emergence of social soft skill needs in the post COVID-19 era

Giorgio Gnecco (), Sara Landi () and Massimo Riccaboni ()
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Giorgio Gnecco: Scuola IMT Alti Studi Lucca
Sara Landi: LUISS University
Massimo Riccaboni: Scuola IMT Alti Studi Lucca

Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, 2024, vol. 58, issue 1, No 30, 647-680

Abstract: Abstract Social soft skills are crucial for workers to perform their tasks, yet it is hard to train people on them and to readapt their skill set when needed. In the present work, we analyze the possible effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on social soft skills in the context of Italian occupations related to 88 economic sectors and 14 age groups. We leverage detailed information coming from ICP (i.e. the Italian equivalent of O*Net), provided by the Italian National Institute for the Analysis of Public Policy, from the microdata for research on the continuous detection of labor force, provided by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), and from ISTAT data on the Italian population. Based on these data, we simulate the impact of COVID-19 on workplace characteristics and working styles that were more severely affected by the lockdown measures and the sanitary dispositions during the pandemic (e.g. physical proximity, face-to-face discussions, working remotely). We then apply matrix completion—a machine-learning technique often used in the context of recommender systems—to predict the average variation in the social soft skills importance levels required for each occupation when working conditions change, as some changes might be persistent in the near future. Professions, sectors, and age groups showing negative average variations are exposed to a deficit in their social soft-skills endowment, which might ultimately lead to lower productivity.

Keywords: Counterfactual analysis; COVID-19; Matrix completion; Work from home; Soft skills (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C44 C53 C63 J24 J44 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11135-023-01659-y

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