LinkedIn green skills data available in 77 countries via Prosperity Data360

To successfully transition to a green economy, we will need green skills, defined by LinkedIn as those that enable the environmental sustainability of economic activities. While these will be critical for jobs and activities we traditionally think of as green—solar panel installation, ecosystem management and pollution prevention —they will also underpin the greening of the financial, transportation, manufacturing, agricultural, and tech sectors.

The good news: workers are gaining green skills at impressive rates. The share of workers with at least one green skill grew by 12% between 2022 and 2023. The challenge: during the same period, the share of job postings requiring at least one green skill increased nearly twice as fast (22%). And this challenge isn't new. From 2018 to 2023, the share of green talent grew by 5% annually, whereas job postings needing green skills increased by 9% per year. The rising demand for green skills is surpassing the supply, portending a green skill shortage.

Now, the World Bank and LinkedIn are proud to add data and interactive visuals on green skills 2017-2023 to the World Bank’s Prosperity Data360 portal. Besides skills penetration, it also contains metrics on skilled talent migration across countries.  The new data can help inform policy discussions in green skills deficits, especially in developing countries where there is a scarcity of green skills data. Like any privately sourced dataset, LinkedIn’s data has strengths and limitations. Drawing on the information contributed by LinkedIn’s members, the data covers many countries and can be remarkably timely and granular.

However, LinkedIn’s members are more likely to have higher levels of education and work in tech-enabled industries, the database available to the World Bank hence focus on green, tech and disruptive tech skills. Insights from this data should supplement, rather than replace, administrative data to create a clearer picture of labor market needs related to skills and jobs. 
 

To support policymakers seeking to address the green transition challenge, LinkedIn shares aggregated data on green talent in the workforce to inform public investments, programs, and research. The International Monetary Fund leveraged LinkedIn data to explore the resilience of green jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic and identify how green employment policies could support national economic recovery strategies.

Also, International training non-profit IYF, in collaboration with the Mexican National Auto Parts Industry Association, used LinkedIn's data to refine a list of critical skills for electric vehicle production, measure their prevalence in the Mexican labor market, and gauge training needs. The Inter-American Development Bank’s Gender and Diversity Lab drew on LinkedIn’s green hiring rates to understand future trends and opportunities in the green economy for women in the region, compare them with global trends, and identify opportunities to ensure women's participation. Drawing on this new valuable resource, we hope World Bank staff and other public actors can better help drive the green transition that is so critical to our future.

Contact: Follow this link to learn more about the World Bank-LinkedIn Partnership and Dashboard. Note the data visuals have two sections: talent migration and skills penetration. Please also find these additional resources for researchers: the Development Data Partnership that allows World Bank staff to submit applications for more detailed country-level data access, LinkedIn’s skills methodology, LinkedIn’s green skills definitions, and LinkedIn’s Data for Impact program.