natc79/EgyptJobData

Scraping and analysis of Egypt Job websites to gather information on labor market demands. # EgyptJobData This repository scrapes several job websites in Egypt to gather information on labor market demands. This information can be useful for tracking occupational trends over time, informing educational investments, and designing curriculums that can help improve labor market outcomes. ## Background In Egypt and many developing countries having timely data that is critical for driving key policy decisions and informing individuals on how and where to invest in education is limited. Typically data driven policy decisions have often only been achieved through considerable survey expenses. These data initiatives are often challenging for developing countries to allocate sufficient resources towards given the expansive nature of priorities and needs these countries face. Online job ad data serves as a potential source of low-cost information on the skills in demand that could be useful for policy makers and learners. This type of information is especially critical in Egypt where nearly three-quarters of the people of working age were out of the labor force, unemployed, informally employed or not-well matched their jobs (estimates from Egypt Labour Force Survey 2014). Among the university educated population, unemployment is especialy high standing at over 20 percent of the population even for science, technical, engineering and mathematics (STEM) degrees. One of the few exceptions is for medical or health degrees where the supply is closely matched to labor market needs. While poor competition, lack of good jobs and labor mobility are part of the explanation, it is likely that these outcomes are also reflective of an education system that has faced challenges in developing the critical skills that graduates need to be successful in the labor market. Starting with a solid data-driven approach by filling the much needed gap in information on labor market trends and the skills that are in demand is seen as an initial step in rectifying one of the maj …