Lightcast uses "dataruns" to release new countries to our global dataset and to update all the current government sourced data. While online profile and job posting data are updated on consistent cycles, government sourced data deals with different cycles depending on the country and is therefore less consistent. Lightcast always collects and releases the latest available data from government sources and uses it to build out regional administrative areas and granular workforce estimates.

This page contains release notes for each of Lightcast’s global dataruns, which is also referred to as "Lingua Franca" dataruns. The release notes outline any new country additions, methodology changes, or fixes included with each datarun. You can expect seven different global dataruns in a year.

This section lists the changes and updates introduced in the latest datarun.

Released: April 11, 2024

Addition of South Africa, and updated workforce data in India

South Africa has been added to our repository of countries available in the Global dataset. The total number of countries for which Lightcast offers workforce estimates, job posting insights, and online profiles insights is now 24!

India numbers reflect a benching of the latest round of data to the latest release of QLFS data (Quarterly Labour Force Survey) at the national / 3-digit occupation level. Their latest releases are on the basis of NCO 2015, which aligns with ISCO-08, rather than NCO 2004 (ISCO 88 basis). The new data released has dramatically higher level of professionals in information and computer technology across the board, which is now reflected in our data.

This section contains release notes for past dataruns.