Who Has Digital Literacy Skills?

• In Event: Understanding the Digital Skills of Adults and How to Improve Them

Abstract

Objectives and Theoretical Background
Digital literacy skills are increasing crucial within many jobs, no longer limited to those requiring a college education or higher or those in the information technology field. Often, entry-level workers across various fields such as health workers, manufacturing, hospitality, retail, construction and transportation need to use technology to do their jobs effectively. Recent work has shown the growing importance of foundational digital skills (Hecker & Loprest, 2019) and increasing digitization across a variety of occupations (Muro et al., 2017).

This research aims to provide a snapshot of the current digital skills of America’s workers. These findings will be useful in efforts to ensure America’s workers have the skills needed in today’s economy—from industry-specific as well as demographic perspectives.

Data and Methods
This paper uses PIAAC 2012/14 U.S. data. Analysis focused on looking at workers aged 16-64 with no or limited digital skills. Workers with no digital skills did not take the full digital skills assessment due to having no prior computer experience, being unwilling to take the computer-based assessment, or inability to complete basic computer tasks, such as highlighting text. Workers with limited digital skills can complete only very simple digital tasks that have a generic interface and just a few steps, performing at the lowest level in the digital problem solving assessment. Descriptive statistics were produced looking at the proportion of workers in various industries and occupations with limited or no digital skills. Analyses were also conducted to create a profile of other work-related characteristics, such as size of employer, as well as demographics, such as age and race/ethnicity, of workers with limited or no digital skills.

Results
While there are workers lacking digital skills across industries and occupations,
the construction, transportation, and storage industries, and the plant and machine operators and assemblers occupations have the highest proportion of workers without digital skills. Looking at other workplace characteristics, workers with no or limited digital skills are slightly overrepresented in small or medium sized businesses and many of these workers supervise others. Additionally, these workers without digital skills are less likely to receive on-the-job training.

Workers with limited or no digital skills can be found across demographic groups. Although older adults, people of color, and those born outside the United States are overrepresented among these low-skilled adults, many of these low-skilled adults are in the younger age groups (16-34), the plurality are white, and the majority born in the United States. Additionally, most workers with limited digital skills have a high school education or less.

Significance
Digital skills are increasing important for success in many jobs. This study shows that workers in a variety of jobs and in all demographic groups can lack digital skills. These results can be used to identify where digital skills gaps exist, the industries and occupations, and demographics where there are larger shortcomings, and where additional interventions are needed, helping to inform upskilling efforts and helping employers to build a skilled workforce.

Author

• Emily Pawlowski, American Institutes for Research