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Talent migration on LinkedIn

notebook

Estimating talent migration using LinkedIn Data

Source: "World Bank LinkedIn Digital Data for Development" by World Bank Group & LinkedIn Corporation, licensed under CC BY 3.0

There data used in this notebook can be accessed here. Three dimensions of talent migration can be analyzed using LinkedIn data - country movement, industry shifts, and skills changes. In this notebook, I only focus on talent migration at the country level.

Country:

  • When a LinkedIn user's updated job location is different from their former location, LinkedIn recognizes this as a physical migration.
  • Subnational (city) level data is available for some countries. The country flow data (inflows, outflows and netflows) represents LinkedIn user-reported location information.

Industry: 

  • The industry assignment is based on the industry associated with a member's company at the time of migration.

Skills: 

  • Member-reported expertise in the skills section of your LinkedIn profile.
  • The LinkedIn data set clusters the tens of thousands of individual skills that members choose to display on their profile into categories for analysis.
  • Skills data were validated using Google Trends, Job Posting on LinkedIn, and European Center for the Development of Vocational Training Panorama skills.

Global Migration Patterns of LinkedIn Members

Assuming LinkedIn data are representative of labor market trends, policy makers can potential answer key questions using this data:

  • Is country X a net loser of talent? With which countries does X compete for talent?
  • To which industries are these talents moving?
  • What skills are gained or lost in association with talent migration?

The plot below illustrates net talent migrants per 10,000 people by region

Talent Migration from Sub-Saharan Africa

Using Sub-Saharan Africa as the base region, where does SSA talent migrate to? The plot below shows that the top receiving countries are the USA, France, Canada and the UK. Internal (to the region) migration is also common - South Africa is the largest recipient of talent migrants in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Talent Migration from Ghana

If we look at one specific country, say Ghana - we can also learn where the country is losing talent to. The UK, Canada, Norway, and Nigeria are key destination countries for Ghanaian talent.

Talent Migration from Nigeria

The US, UK, and Canada are major destinations for Nigerian talent migrants.

Talent Migration from Zimbabwe

Zimbabwean talent is likely to migrate to South Africa, followed by the US.

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