Measuring innovation by job quantities

From Greg Ip:

Quantifying innovation is difficult: Government statistics don’t adequately measure activities that only recently came into existence. Mr. Mandel circumvents this problem by surmising that innovation leaves its mark in the sorts of skills employers demand. For example, the shale oil and gas revolution is apparent in the soaring numbers of mining, geological and petroleum engineers, whereas the ranks of biological, medical, chemical, and materials scientists have slipped since 2006-07.

Screening job postings on Indeed, a job website, Mr. Mandel finds that the proportion mentioning “Android” (Google’s mobile operating system), “fracking” and “robotics” has risen notably in the past four to six years. But the proportion mentioning “composite materials,” “biologist,” “gene” or “nanotechnology” has trended down. His conclusion: Today’s economy is “unevenly innovative.”

You can find the whole article here.  Does anyone have a link to the study itself?

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