Skills analysis

In the absence of a commonly agreed definition and list of soft skills, we carried out comprehensive research on the existing literature and gathered examples of soft skills given by fellow researchers in 62 scientific works, official documents, and industry reports published during 1995-2022. We categorized them and compared them to the ESCO taxonomy (up to 3 digits), counting the number of times each of the soft skills was mentioned. Furthermore, we charted them from the soft skills most frequently mentioned in the literature to the ones most rarely mentioned. We identified skills belonging to 4 one-digit skills categories and 5 one-digit transversal skills and competencies in the ESCO taxonomy. These split into 62 two-digit skills and competencies and further into more than 1000 three-digit skills and competencies.
Furthermore, we extracted information regarding the training offer of the 8 biggest training companies in Romania in a 4-year timeframe (2018-2022) and identified the similarities, as well as the differences with regard to the training provision on the market, as an effect of COVID-19 as well as of the digitalization and technologization of the job market.

This analysis is part of a more extensive study developed within the PhD research by Anamaria Grama.