Statistical Assessment of The Development of Digital Skills of The Employed Population in The Russian Federation

Quantitative measurement of the competencies of the employed population in the use of modern technologies makes it possible to characterize the resources for the development of the digital economy and the factors for the spread of digital innovations in the economic activities of enterprises in terms of the quality of human capital. Many empirical studies and analytical reports characterize digital skills using measures of the number of specialists in the field of information and communication technologies. However, this approach is limited, since the spread of digital business models and the introduction of technologies in all areas of the economy have increased the skill complexity of work in a wide range of occupations. Now, the personnel of the digital economy can be considered not only ICT specialists, but also those employees who intensively use computer and computing equipment and software systems.

Purpose of the study. The purpose of this study is to develop a methodology for quantifying the skills of using digital technologies among the employed population based on official statistical methodology, testing it on real data, as well as analyzing trends in the development of digital skills in recent years, including for various socio-economic and demographic categories of the employed population.

Materials and methods. To achieve this goal, international and domestic experience in building summary indicators of competencies necessary for the operation of computer equipment and work with standard and specialized programs and applications was studied. A comparative analysis of such approaches has been carried out. The index method was used to calculate the digital skills indicator. Grouping methods, tabular and graphical methods, dynamics analysis methods, distribution variation analysis methods were used to form summary results and analyze them.

The information source of the study was microdata from sample surveys of the Federal State Statistics Service. The indicators are presented in the annual frequency for 2016-2020 for the Russian Federation.

Results. The advantages and disadvantages of digital skills assessment approaches were identified. A methodology has been developed for calculating the weighted average level of digital skills of the employed population. The calculation was carried out using this method based on the microdata of sample surveys for 2020. The changes that have taken place in the distribution of employees by levels of digital skills have been studied. The dynamics of the level of digital skills is analyzed, including by age groups, professional groups and types of economic activity.

Conclusion. The results of the analysis of the development of digital skills can be used in studies on modeling the relationship between the level of user competencies of personnel in the digital environment and the development of the digital economy in order to study the features and patterns of digital transformation of economic activity in the Russian Federation in a deeper and more comprehensive way.

1. Chinaeva T. I. Digital economy: directions of development. Rossiya: tendentsii i perspektivy razvitiya = Russia: trends and development prospects. 2018; 13-1: 445-446. (In Russ.).

2. The Digital Transformation of SMEs, OECD Studies on SMEs and Entrepreneurship Paris: OECD Publishing; 2021. 275 p. [Internet] Available from: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/industryand-services/the-digital-transformation-of-smes_bdb9256a-en.

3. Zaichenko I.M., Gorshechnikova P.D., Levina A.I., Dubgorn A.S. Digital transformation of business: approaches and definition. Ekonomika i ekologicheskiy menedzhment = Economics and environmental management. 2020. №2: 205-212. (In Russ.).

4. Markeeva A.V., Gavrilenko O.V. Digital platform as a new economic actor and a new instance of social control. Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta. Seriya 7 = Bulletin of Moscow University. Series 7: Philosophy. 2019; 5: 29-48. (In Russ.).

5. Dneprovskaya N.V. Study of the transition of enterprises to a digital economy. Vestnik Rossiyskogo ekonomicheskogo universiteta imeni G. V. Plekhanova = Bulletin of the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics. 2019; 4: 54-65. (In Russ.).

6. Digital Skills Insights 2021. Geneva: International Telecommunication Union; 2021. 156 p. [Internet] Available from: https://academy.itu.int/sites/default/files/media2/file/21-00668_Digital-Skill-Insight-210831_CSD%20Edits%206_Accessible-HD.pdf

7. New Perspectives on ICT Skills and Employment. OECD Digital Economy Papers. no. 96. Paris: OECD Publishing; 2005. 35 p. [Internet] Available from: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/232342747761.pdf?expires=1655665534&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=821821726192C4EA32A1B38D81F266F5.

8. Proposal for a EUROSTAT-OECD Definition of ICT Specialists. Paris: OECD Publishing; 2015. [Elec. resource] Available from: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/metadata/Annexes/isoc_skslf_esms_an1.pdf.

9. Data from a sample survey of the use of ICT by the population. Federal State Statistics Service. [Internet] Available from: https://gks.ru/free_doc/new_site/business/it/ikt20/index.html (In Russ.).

10. OECD Skills Outlook 2015: Youth, Skills and Employability. Paris: OECD Publishing; 2015. 156 p. [Internet] Available from: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/oecd-skills-outlook-2015_9789264234178-en.

11. Digital Skills Assessment Guide. Geneva: International Telecommunication Union; 2020. 76 p. [Internet] Available from: https://academy.itu.int/sites/default/files/media2/file/20-00227_1f_Digital_Skills_assessment_Guidebook_R.pdf. (In Russ.)

12. Ferrari A. Digital Competence in Practice: An Analysis of Frameworks. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union; 2012. 95 p. [Internet] Available from: https://ifap.ru/library/book522.pdf

13. The Digital Competence Framework. An official EU website [Internet] Available from: https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/digcomp/digital-competence-framework_en

14. Dmitrieva N.E., Zhulin A.B., Artamonov R.E., Titov E.A. Assessing the Digital Readiness of the Russian Population. Doklad k XXII Aprel’skoy mezhdunarodnoy nauchnoy konferentsii po problemam razvitiya ekonomiki i obshchestva = Report to the XXII April International Scientific Conference on the Problems of the Development of the Economy and Society (Moscow, April 13–30, 2021) Moscow: Publishing House of the Higher School of Economics; 2021. 86 p. (In Russ.)

15. Study «Index of digital literacy». Official website of WCIOM [Internet] Available from: https://wciom.ru/fileadmin/file/reports_conferences/2015/2015-12-21-rocit.pdf. (In Russ.)

16. Digital Literacy. Official website of ROCIT [Internet] Available from: https://xn--d1achkm1a.xn--80aaefw2ahcfbneslds6a8jyb.xn--p1ai/.(In Russ.).

17. Diagnostika tsifrovykh kompetentsiy sotrudnikov. Analiticheskiy tsentr Natsional’nogo agentstva finansovykh issledovaniy = Diagnosis of digital competencies of employees. Analytical Center of the National Agency for Financial Research [Internet] Available from: https://nafi.ru/method/diagnostika-tsifrovykh-kompetentsiy-sotrudnikov/ (In Russ.).

18. Official site of the project «Ready for digital» [Internet] Available from: https://xn-b1abhljwatnyu.xn--p1ai/ (In Russ.).

19. Digital Skills Toolkit. Geneva: International Telecommunication Union; 2018. 100 p. [Internet] Available from: https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Digital-Inclusion/Documents/Digital-Skills-Toolkit-Russian.pdf. (In Russ.)

20. Survey data of the HSE. National Research University Higher School of Economics [Internet] Available from: https://www.hse.ru/rlms/spss (In Russ.).

21. Manual for Measuring ICT Access and Use by Households and Individuals Geneva: International Telecommunication Union; 2014. [Internet] Available from: https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/publications/manual2014.aspx.

22. The ITU ICT SDG indicators. Official website of the International Telecommunication Union [Internet] Available from: https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/SDGs-ITU-ICT-indicators.aspx.

23. Proposal for Amendments to the ITU Guiding Documents on ICT Skills Measurement. Official website of the International Telecommunication Union. 2020. 12 p. [Internet] Available from: https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/events/egti2018/EGH-Skills%20Proposal%202018-09-27.pdf.

24. The ICT Development Index (IDI) Methodology, indicators and definitions. Official website of the International Telecommunication Union. 2019. 83p. [Internet] Available from: https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/statistics/ITU_ICT%20Development%20Index.pdf.

25. SDG indicator metadata (Harmonized metadata template - format version 1.0). Official website of the UN Statistical Commission. 2021. 6 p. [Internet] Available from: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/files/Metadata-04-04-01.pdf.

26. Digital Skills Indicator - derived from Eurostat survey on ICT usage by Individuals Methodological note. EU4Digital. 2015. 4 p. [Internet] Access Mode: https://eufordigital.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Digital-Skills-Indicator-survey-on-ICT-usage-by-Individuals_Methodological.pdf.

27. Rosstat Order No. 64 dated February 13, 2020 «Ob utverzhdenii metodiki rascheta pokazatelya federal’nogo proyekta «Kadry dlya tsifrovoy ekonomiki» natsional’noy programmy «Tsifrovaya ekonomika Rossiyskoy Federatsii» (vmeste s «Metodikoy rascheta pokazatelya «Dolya naseleniya, obladayushchego tsifrovoy gramotnost’yu i klyuchevymi kompetentsiyami tsifrovoy ekonomiki») = “On approval of the methodology for calculating the indicator of the federal project “Personnel for the Digital Economy” of the national program “Digital Economy of the Russian Federation” (with the “Method for calculating the indicator “The proportion of the population with digital literacy and key competencies of digital economy»).(In Russ.)

28. Results of a sample survey of the labor force. Official website of the Federal State Statistics Service; 2021. [Internet] Available from: https://rosstat.gov.ru/folder/11110/document/13265. (In Russ.)