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A pixelated portrait of labour
就業市場高清圖
LinkedIn offers a new way to look at employment
LinkedIn讓你用全新的角度看待就業
OFFICIAL statistics can tell you how many workers were jobless last month, how many had college degrees and how many worked in construction.
官方統計數據能夠告訴你上個月有多少人失業，多少個有大學文憑及多少人從事建筑業。
But they cannot tell you how many know Hadoop, a software for managing data that is much in demand these days.
但這些數據卻無法告訴你有多少人會使用Hadoop這個如今需求量甚大的數據管理軟件。
LinkedIn, however, says it knows that, and much else gleaned from the profiles of its millions of members.
然而，LinkedIn說它知道這些，還掌握許多從其數百萬會員的注冊信息收集而來的其它信息。
The social-media website for professionals can tell you that one of the fastest-growing job titles in America is adjunct professor.
這個專業人士的社交網站能告訴你，美國從業人數增長最快的一種職業是兼職教授，
One of the fastest-shrinking is sales associate.
從業人數減少得最快的職業之一是銷售人員。
Researchers already mine the internet for hints about disease outbreaks, the national mood or inflation.
研究人員已經在網絡上找尋關于疾病爆發、國民心態及通貨膨脹的線索。
LinkedIn thinks its data can do the same for the job market.
LinkedIn認為其數據能在就業市場上派上同樣的用場。
It has more than 150m members worldwide, 60m of them in America.
LinkedIn在全球擁有一億五千萬會員，其中六千萬來自美國。
That should be enough to draw accurate inferences about the entire American labour force.
憑此應足以精確推斷整個美國勞動力市場的情形。
At the request of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, it calculated which industries and job titles were experiencing the biggest gains and losses.
應白宮經濟顧問委員會的要求，LinkedIn對哪些行業及職業的從業人數最多或最少進行了統計。
Scott Nicholson, a data scientist for the firm, says LinkedIn can potentially track such changes in real time,
該公司的一位數據科學家 斯科特尼科爾森說，LinkedIn甚至可以實時追蹤這些數據的變化，
rather than the weeks or months government surveys take.
而不像政府調查那樣要費時數周或數月。
It can also follow occupations and industries, such as e-learning, that don't have their own category in government tallies.
LinkedIn也可以追蹤如在線學習這種政府記錄中沒有單列出來的職業與行業的數據。
It can trace shifts between regions, sectors and occupations.
它還能追蹤不同地區、行業、職業之間的變化。
Are people quitting law firms to become law professors, moving from Arizona to North Dakota, or what?
人們是否辭去了律師事物所的工作去當法律教授了？是否從亞利桑那州搬到了北達科它州？還是其他狀況？
The firm hopes to be able to track the nation's evolving skills base.
該公司希望能夠對美國人不斷發展的技能水平進行追蹤。
Members routinely pick up new skills and add them to their profile.
其會員平日會學習新的技能并將其添加至個人信息中。
LinkedIn can see how often job-changers mention a particular skill, such as Hadoop.
LinkedIn能夠知道跳槽者提及某項技能的頻率。
Jeff Weiner, the firm's boss, imagines that eventually every job opening and its requisite skills will be digitally searchable by every potential candidate,
公司老板杰夫韋納的設想是最終每位潛在的求職者都能在網上搜索到空缺的職位及其所需的技能，使社會能更加人盡其才，
reducing the friction that lets millions of vacancies co-exist with high unemployment.
而不至于出現有數百萬個空缺職位的同時卻又失業率高企的局面。
Such granularity could revolutionise economic research, says Erik Brynjolfsson of MIT.
麻省理工學院的埃里克布呂諾爾夫松說，這種 分辨率會為經濟調查帶來革命性的變化。
But for consistency and longevity, you can't beat the government.
但若論調查的連貫性和持久性，無人能勝過政府。
As Mr Brynjolfsson notes, Web companies don't tend to have the same lifespan as the US Census Bureau.
正如埃里克布呂諾爾夫松所說，網絡公司的壽命往往不可能和美國統計局一樣長。
