Delivering job search services in rural labour markets: the role of ICT



not reflect an objective analysis of the individual’s skills. It is common for job seekers to
demonstrate a degree of over-confidence in evaluating their skills attainment - perhaps
reflecting the rhetoric used by many on a day-to-day basis when attempting to ‘sell’
themselves to employers (McQuaid and Lindsay, 2002). However, it is notable that while
less than 10% of all respondents considered their occupational skills, literacy, numeracy
or communication skills to be ‘poor’, 58% held similarly negative views about their ICT
skills. Educational attainment would again appear to be closely linked to job seekers’
perceptions here. Those qualified to the general level of ‘SCE Higher Grade or
equivalent’ were much less likely to consider their ICT skills to be poor (36%, compared
to 78% of those with no qualifications and 55% of those with intermediate
qualifications). Younger job seekers, who tend to hold more formal qualifications, were
also generally more confident about using ICT: only 49% of 18-24 year olds described
their ICT skills as poor, compared to 75% of those aged 50, and 57% of other job
seekers. This is particularly noteworthy given that 18-24 year olds were only slightly more
likely than the ‘50 plus’ age group to have home Internet access (although both groups
were below-average in terms of regularly using Internet to look for work, at 14% and
12% respectively).

Age, attitudes towards ICT, perceived and real gaps in technical skills, and perhaps
most importantly educational attainment and income status may all impact on the ability
and willingness of job seekers to use new forms of technology as a means of looking for
work. However, there is a clear need to ‘unpack’ these variables, and the relationships
between them. For example, those with lower household incomes are both more likely to
be long-term unemployed and less likely to have access to the Internet at home. Yet thus
far it has remained unclear the extent to which the digital divide experienced by many of
these individuals is a symptom of their long-term unemployment (in itself linked to lower
educational attainment), their income status, or a combination of these and other factors.

16



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