The study aims to identify and describe the most relevant professional skill
patterns among the digital platform workers from the selected Southeastern
European (SEE) countries. Such orientation is based on the relatively modest
presence of SEE countries in large pan-European studies, and on the lack of
information regarding the applicability of existing online job taxonomies in
observed countries. Applying a topic approach as a natural language
processing technique, we analyzed the sets of self-reported skills provided
by digital platform workers registered at the Upwork platform. Seven
distinctive skill profiles were extracted, which only partly overlapped with
the standard Oxford?s Online Labour Index of digital job taxonomy. Results
are indicating clear distinctions between highly specialized and general job
categories, and between creative and technical professions. Mapping of the
skills and national affiliations reveal differences between EU and non-EU
countries in the region regarding professional inclinations. Partly in line
with the findings of previous studies, the results pave the way for future
research on this topic.
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