Economic shocks and skill acquisition: evidence from a national online learning platform at the onset of COVID-19

Ganguli, Ina and Haidar, Jamal and Khwaja, Asim Ijaz and Stemper, Samuel and Zafar, Basit (2024): Economic shocks and skill acquisition: evidence from a national online learning platform at the onset of COVID-19.

Abstract

We study how large shocks impact individuals’ skilling decisions using data from a large, government-sponsored, 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 descriptive evidence that these investments in skills in early 2020 helped users maintain employment over the course of the pandemic.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Education; Human capital; Online learning; Telework; COVID-19
• Subjects: I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I1 - Health; I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I2 - Education and Research Institutions; I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I2 - Education and Research Institutions > I25 - Education and Economic Development; I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I2 - Education and Research Institutions > I26 - Returns to Education; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J0 - General; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor > J22 - Time Allocation and Labor Supply; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor > J24 - Human Capital ; Skills ; Occupational Choice ; Labor Productivity

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