I-Corps: Advanced Analytics for Workforce Dynamics

George Mason University, Fairfax VA

Investigators

Abstract

The broader impact / commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to improve the information available to workforce planners in a way that reduces the time and money they spend in assessing and anticipating regional workforce needs. With the help of more accurate analytics, workforce planners will be able to shift more of their resources towards designing and developing training initiatives that fill the most likely skills-gaps for workers in the near- to mid-term, thus keeping their regions globally competitive in rapidly-evolving labor markets. The commercial potential of this project derives from advances in computational techniques to identify industry-specific skills gaps empirically; to map the related structure of regional production; and to uncover new skills-induced career pathways in regional economies using those maps. Bringing these technical advances to workforce analysts and policy makers will provide both with the best available tools to respond adaptively to the innovative needs of their economies. This I-Corps project uses advanced analytics and Big Data collection methods to assess the technical and spatial distribution of work in cities with the goal of providing insights along three dimensions: patterns of technology diffusion and their workforce implications; human capital-based evolutionary competitive advantages of regional economies; and the structure of regional "economic ecosystems" as a source of entrepreneurship and innovation. The algorithms search the parameter space of regional economic activities, capabilities, and technologies to describe the actual structure of work within a given region. In effect, this innovation enables the automation of key aspects of workforce planning strategy that are typically time-consuming and expensive because they typically rely on surveys. The approach developed here will enhance the speed and accuracy of labor market analysis.