ESCO-skills

Definition

According to the ESCO definition, ESCO applies the same definition of "skill" as the European Qualifications Framework (EQF). According to this, "skill" means the ability to apply knowledge and use know-how to complete tasks and solve problems.

Description

ESCO is a common EU classification of occupations and skills, akin to Jobtech Taxonomy. The concepts in ESCO are translated into all official EU languages, aswell as some additional ones such as Arabic, and serve as a hub for interoperability between classifications on a national and European level.

The member states of the EU are bound by the Eures Directive to either create mappings between ESCO and their national occupational and skill structures, or to fully implement ESCO. The main purpose with the mapping is to enrich CVs and job ads sent to EURES with references (URIs) to the concepts in ESCO to which mappings from a national skill or occupation used in the CV or job ad has been created. In Sweden, we chose to map occupation name concepts and skills to corresponding concept types in ESCO. The mappings between the concept structures are made available via Jobtech Taxonomy. Member states' mapping tables are published on the ESCO website.

Skills in ESCO distinguish between concepts related to skills and concepts related to knowledge. The skills are partly based on O*Net and the Canadian skills and knowledge glossary and are attributed with a "closeness indicator", either essential or optional, in relation to ESCO occupations to which they are deemed to be connected.

When comparing the skill concepts classified within the Taxonomy with ESCOs classification, it is apparent that ESCO represent skills at a more detailed level while skills in the Taxonomy are fewer and generally broader.

Concepts in ESCO are identified using persistent URIs, for example: http://data.europa.eu/esco/skill/1605025e-a179-421f-8f35-5b07d182a6b2.

ESCO-skills in the Taxonomy

The Taxonomy represents all ESCO skills as their own concepts. Mappings to the Taxonomy skills are represented as mapping relations according to SKOS. URIs to the ESCO concepts are found through the esco-uri attribute.

The example below shows what such a concept might look like in the Taxonomy. Note that there is an additional attribute to represent URIs (uri). This attribute can be used by external sources to reference concepts within the Taxonomy.

{
    "id": "oFJV_raT_EUx",
    "preferred_label": "webbanalys",
    "type": "esco-skill"
    "esco_uri": "http://data.europa.eu/esco/skill/1605025e-a179-421f-8f35-5b07d182a6b2",
    "uri": "http://data.jobtechdev.se/taxonomy/concept/oFJV_raT_EUx",
}

Although ESCO skills are incorporated in the Taxonomy, the ESCO skill structure (hierachical levels above) is not.

Mappings

The different types of mapping relations can be found in the relations chapter. An ESCO skill can be mapped towards one or more Taxonomy skill concepts, and vice versa.

In ESCO, there are nearly 14000 skills, while the number of skill concepts in the Taxonomy is around 6000. Since the ESCO skills are also more detailed, a majority of the mappings uses the broad-match relation, i.e., the Taxonomy skill is broader than the ESCO skill.

In the following example, however, the inverse is true. Here, the ESCO skill webbanalys has been mapped to the skills Konverteringsoptimering and Google Analytics using the narrow-match relation, implying that the Taxonomy skill concepts are more detailed.

graph TD;
    A(webbanalys) -->|narrow-match| B(Google Analytics)
    A -->|narrow-match| C(Konverteringsoptimering)

Managing the mappings

The mapping has been carried out, and is managed, by the editorial team at the Jobtech Unit within Arbetsförmedlingen.

Due to the fact that all skills need to be mapped to one or more ESCO skills, new mappings are constantly being added as new skills emerge or become deprecated. Therefore, it is to be expected that each new Taxonomy version will involve some changes in regards to the mappings to some, usually a lesser, extent.

The mappings are determined through manual analysis and with adherance to the ESCO's instructions.

ESCO-skills without mappings

For certain ESCO skills, the assessment has been that mapping to one or more competency concepts has not been possible. In addition to these concepts not having any mapping relationships, they have a special attribute, no-esco-relation, to more easily distinguish them from the mapped concepts. See, for instance, the concept utvärdera sin egen miljöpåverkan.

{
    "id": "FcHd_Pat_syt",
    "preferred_label": "utvärdera sin egen miljöpåverkan",
    "esco_uri": "http://data.europa.eu/esco/skill/2aaad52d-599e-4e77-a681-bbc236825821",
    "uri": "http://data.jobtechdev.se/taxonomy/concept/FcHd_Pat_syt",
    "type": "esco-skill",
    "no_esco_relation": true
}

ESCO versions

With each release of a new ESCO version, the upcoming Taxonomy version is updated with any changes to the ESCO skills.

Presently, however, ESCO versions are not explicitly represented in the Taxonomy.

The mapping subsytem can however be used to target specific ESCO versions.

GraphQL examples

The queries below can be tested through our GraphiQL interface.

Get all skill mappings

query MyQuery {
  concepts(type: "skill") {
    id
    preferred_label
    uri
    type
    broad_match (type: "esco-skill"){
      id
      preferred_label
      esco_uri
      type
    }
    narrow_match (type: "esco-skill"){
      id
      preferred_label
      esco_uri
      type
    }
    exact_match (type: "esco-skill"){
      id
      preferred_label
      esco_uri
      type
    }
    close_match (type: "esco-skill"){
      id
      preferred_label
      esco_uri
      type
    }
  }
}