Developing insights in supply and demand on the labour market is one of the core activities of Passport4Work. This is done by painting a timely picture of the skills needed by employers, and those in possession by workers, and then comparing the two.
One important prerequisite for this comparison is the realization of a common understanding of skills. After all, skills can be complex and abstract, leaving plenty of room for interpretation. To avoid this, Passport4Work made the decision to build its tools on a universally known skills language (also known as a taxonomy): the US-based O*NET. However, a major concern has been the representativeness of O*NET for the Dutch labour market. Considering the highly contextual nature of occupations and skills, merely copying the American skills language and its underlying data could result in mismatches due to a misrepresentation of the Dutch labour market. This could occur because O*NET includes information on the relevance, and required level of a skill for a certain occupation.
In an attempt to still benefit from the recognizability and robustness of the O*NET skills language, but to make sure the underlying data on the relevance and required level of a skill are accurate for the Dutch labour market, a national survey was conducted among Dutch employers and employees (which is the same methodology employed by O*NET in the United States).