A team of CNetS researchers has created the first global map of labor flow in collaboration with the world’s largest professional social network, LinkedIn. The work is reported in the journal Nature Communications. The study’s lead authors are Jaehyuk Park and Ian Wood, PhD students working with YY Ahn. Wood is currently a software engineer at LinkedIn. Other authors on the study are CNetS PhD student Elise Jing; Azadeh Nematzadeh of S&P Global, who contributed to the study as a CNetS PhD student; Souvik Ghosh of LinkedIn; and Michael Conover, a CNetS PhD graduate and senior data scientist at LinkedIn at the time of the study. CNetS researchers created the map using LinkedIn’s data on 500 million people between 1990 and 2015, including about 130 million job transitions between more than 4 million companies. The researchers gained access to this data as one of only two teams — IU and MIT — selected to continue their work on the LinkedIn Economic Graph Research program beyond 2017. The study’s result represents a powerful tool for understanding the flow of people between industries and regions in the U.S. and beyond. It could also help policymakers better understand how to address critical skill gaps in the labor market or connect workers with new opportunities in nearby communities. More…