Examining the ways that numeracy skills and soft skills are related to occupational status: the case of US workers

Policymakers are increasingly concerned that employees need both foundational skills, such as numeracy, and soft skills to be successful in the 21st century economy. However, there is little empirical research that examines whether foundational skills and soft skills have independent or interactive relationships with occupational outcomes. Based on our analysis of Programme of International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) data, we find that four self-reported measures of the use of soft skills at work have statistically significant, positive relationships with an employee's occupational status - and that these relationships are independent of numeracy skill. The soft skills measures that are positively correlated with occupational status are (a) readiness to learn; (b) influence; (c) planning; and (d) task discretion. We also estimate interaction effects between numeracy skill proficiency and all four aspects of soft skills. Results indicate that the relationships between occupational status and two soft skill types (planning and influence) are significantly different between workers with low and high numeracy proficiency. That is, workers with low-numeracy skills tend to benefit more from exercising planning or influence skills at work than workers with high numeracy proficiency. Independent of soft skills, workers with higher levels of numeracy skills also tend to have higher occupational status.

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