Working Paper: NBER ID: w29921
Authors: Ina Ganguli; Jamal I. Haidar; Asim Ijaz Khwaja; Samuel W. Stemper; Basit Zafar
Abstract: We study how large shocks impact individuals’ skilling decisions using data from the largest online learning platform in Saudi Arabia. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic brought about a massive increase in online skilling, and demand shifted towards courses that offered skills, such as telework, likely to be immediately valuable during the pandemic. Consistent with a model where individuals trade off reskilling costs with their expectations of future labor market conditions and their duration of work, we find that shifts into telework courses were largest for older workers. In contrast, younger workers increased enrollments in courses related to new skills, such as general, occupation-specific, and computer-related skills. Using national administrative employment data, we provide suggestive evidence that these investments in skills in early 2020 helped users maintain employment over the course of the pandemic.
Keywords: COVID-19; skill acquisition; online learning; telework; labor market
JEL Codes: I21; J24
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| COVID-19 shock (H12) | increase in telework course enrollments (A29) |
| older users (J14) | increase in telework course enrollments (A29) |
| younger users (D16) | shift towards general and occupation-specific skills (J24) |
| skill investments (J24) | maintained employment during the pandemic (J68) |