Abstract
Creating green jobs tackles two crises: the economic downturn and environmental degradation. Responding to the economic downturn, some governments have declared a “green new deal” to remedy unemployment and the economic crisis. Job creation has been suggested as a driving force for sustainable economic development and climate change action. However, the question of how many and what types of green jobs are required has not been systematically examined. Are green job openings and searches matching each other in terms of timing, sectors, regions, and salary? This study aims to explore the degree of matching between green job supply and demand using a big data analysis (BDA) of online job market recruiting services in South Korea from 2009 to 2020. The BDA of the Ecojob website reveals that green jobs are concentrated in Seoul and Gyeounggi-do metropolitan areas. The number of water- and air-quality-related jobs is high within these sectors. Job searches in the water quality sector outnumbered job openings. The findings imply that green job creation policy should reflect timing, regional, and sectoral demand and supply data. Creating and matching green jobs is expected to reduce environmental harm, enhance environmental quality, and reduce unemployment.
Highlights
Tackling two pressing crises—the economic downturn and climate change—is a complex and challenging task
Despite the fact that the collected data only represent active job-seekers registered on Ecojob, and they cannot be considered the complete set of green job-seekers in South Korea, we believe it is enough to analyze the overall tendency of matches and mismatches of green jobs and this does not undermine our main arguments in this research
Green jobs, which require a certain level of expertise, may present unique job supply and demand in terms of timing, region, sectors, and salary
Summary
Tackling two pressing crises—the economic downturn and climate change—is a complex and challenging task. The Korean Green New Deal Initiative, for instance, declared that KRW 42.7 trillion for a green transition of infrastructure and the energy sector would create 659,000 jobs by 2025. A big data analysis (BDA) of green jobs has been rarely considered In filling this gap, this study aims to explore the supply and demand of green jobs using a BDA of a green job recruiting website. Explorative research contributes to the literature in providing a review of job match and mismatch studies, the empirical analysis of green job demand and supply, and policy suggestions to respond to green job matching in reality. The Discussion and Conclusions section concludes the study and provides policy suggestions to facilitate matches in green job supply and demand and creation
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