Remote Work and Hiring Requirements: Cross-Country Evidence from Job Postings

Abstract

In this article, we show that remote work is associated with higher skill and qualification requirements in hiring. Drawing on qualitative interviews, we identify several mechanisms through which remote work raises hiring standards. By reducing face-to-face interaction and real-time communication, remote work makes training and employee support more challenging, expands the pool of applicants, and leads employers to rely more on quantifiable metrics. We tested these ideas by analyzing over 50 million job postings from 28 European countries between 2018 and 2021 and found that the shift to remote work is associated with a higher number of required skills and greater work experience for a job. These findings indicate that remote work contributes to skill upgrading in the labor market.

Keywords

remote work work from home telework hiring skills qualifications job requirements skill upgrading job postings labor demand work experience requirements on-the-job training digital work future of work cross-country mixed methods qualitative interviews

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