Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics
Lund Papers in Economic History,
Lund University, Department of Economic History
No 264: The Jobs Ads Database (JABD) Prototype: Building a New Resource for Historical Labour Market Research
Mathias Johansson (), Peter Gladoić Håkansson, Tobias Karlsson () and Matti La Mela
Additional contact information
Mathias Johansson: Department of Arts and Cultural Sciences, Lund University, Postal: Department of Arts and Cultural Sciences, Lund University, Box 192, S-221 00 Lund, Sweden
Peter Gladoić Håkansson: Department of Society, Culture and Identity, Malmö University
Tobias Karlsson: Department of Economic History, Lund University, Postal: Department of Economic History, Lund University, Box 7083, S-220 07 Lund, Sweden
Matti La Mela: Department of ALM, Uppsala University
Abstract: This paper introduces a novel dataset that serves as a prototype of what we call the ‘Job Ads Database’ (JADB). The underlying job advertisements are gathered from the Swedish digitalized newspaper corpus hosted by and made accessible through the Swedish National Library (Kungliga Biblioteket). JADB enables studying how the frequency and content of job advertisements change over time and sheds new light on the role of newspapers in recruitment, both relative to earlier practices and to public employment offices. We compare JADB data with official employment statistics of notified vacancies and applications from the Swedish Public Employment Administration (SPEA).
Keywords: job advertisements; newspapers; historical labour markets; recruitment practices; Sweden; digitized newspapers; HISCO; labour demand; nineteenth century; twentieth century
JEL-codes: C55; C81; J63; J64; N33; N34
Language: English
22 pages, March 4, 2026
Full text files
LUPEH_264.pdfFull text
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