COVID-19, Jobs and skills: A comprehensive analysis of the job postings in the US and UK healthcare job market

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected all spheres of life, including the healthcare workforce. While the COVID-19 pandemic has started driving organizational and societal shifts, it is vital for healthcare organizations and decision-makers to analyse trends towards a changing workforce. In this study, we aim to identify patterns in healthcare job postings during the pandemic to understand which jobs and associated skills are trending after the advent of COVID-19. Content analysis of job postings was conducted using data-driven approaches over two time intervals in the pandemic. The proposed framework utilizes Latent Dirichlet Allocation(LDA) for topic modelling, to evaluate the trends in job postings in the US and the UK, for a comparative study. The most demanded jobs, skills and tasks for the US job postings are presented based on job posting data of popular job posting websites. This is obtained by mapping the job postings to the jobs, skills and tasks defined in the O*NET database for the healthcare occupations in US. The topic modelling results clearly show a trend towards increased hiring for telehealth services in both the US and UK. This study also suggests that there have been sudden increase in demand for certain occupations and skills in the USA healthcare industry. The results and methods used in the study can help monitor rapid changes in the job market due to pandemics and crises. The findings can guide decision-makers to make organizational shifts in a timely manner.

Date of Award	May 2021
Original language	American English