① With the development of AI and other automation technologies, structural changes in labor demand across various occupations have become increasingly evident. As a result, understanding which skills are in demand and highly valued has become more critical than ever. Drawing on recent literature that highlights the importance of social skills, this paper quantitatively measures social tasks and skills in the domestic labor market and examines whether the significance of social skills has increased in terms of labor input and wages. 

② In terms of labor input, the share of social skill-intensive occupations has risen by 7%p (from 49% to 56%) over the past 14 years (2008-2022). In contrast, the share of math-intensive occupations has seen a more modest increase of 5%p (from 50% to 55%), while the share of low social-low math occupations has decreased by 8%p (from 43% to 36%). This suggests that as the overall skill level in the labor market upgrades, the importance of social skills is also on the rise.

③ Regarding wages, there is a growing trend of increased labor market returns to social skills. Between 2007 and 2015, a one standard deviation increase in social skills increased real hourly wages by 4.4%. This rate of increase was even higher between 2016 and 2020, amounting to 5.9%. On the other hand, returns to cognitive skills appear to have declined in recent years.

④ The growing importance of social skills is also evident in the U.S. labor market. This phenomenon can be explained by the fact that social interactions are based on tacit knowledge, which is difficult to codify and therefore hard to replace through automation. Consequently, social skills such as teamwork and communication skills, which are less susceptible to automation, are expected to become even more critical in the future.