About SHIFT

SHIFT is an independent, methodology-first project designed to track changes over time in advertised demand for work. It is intended to make labour-demand movements easier to inspect, compare over time and discuss — with proper regard to their limitations.

Who counts

SHIFT is published by José Covas. He is an economist by training and has spent his career in property valuation — practising it, teaching it, and working on the rules that govern how it is done. He teaches valuation and professional ethics on postgraduate and executive programmes in Lisbon.

That work and this index share one problem. In his words: value is not a number but a judgement, and a judgement is only worth what it can withstand when it is tested. SHIFT is built to that rule. Every figure is produced by a method fixed before the counting, tested against alternative ways of combining the same data, and withheld where those tests disagree.

José Covas → · his professional record, in full

The publisher

SHIFT is published under the name SHIFT Research, the research service through which José Covas Education Academy, Lda publishes the index. It is funded by the sale of its own reports — not by employers, recruiters or job boards. Nobody pays to appear in the index, and nobody can pay to be left out of it.

The method

Every rule is fixed before the counting begins, and none of them is a judgement made under pressure: the methodology sets out what we count, what we leave out, and why. We are available to demonstrate how a particular figure was produced.

Data, rights and attribution

SHIFT uses job-advertisement information under the terms and permissions applicable to each provider. It publishes derived aggregate counts and indices, and does not republish third-party job advertisements or underlying provider datasets.

The primary data source is a third-party provider of aggregated online job-advertisement data, giving counts of advertisements by search term and country. Public statistics and third-party benchmarks are used only as external context, are identified where used, are not presented as SHIFT data, and remain subject to the rights and terms of their owners.

SHIFT is not affiliated with, endorsed by or acting on behalf of any data provider, any statistical office or any other third party, unless expressly stated in writing.

Contact and legal identity

Press and general enquiries: contact@shiftindex.org. Everything else has its own route — privacy, support and refunds, and formal complaints.

SHIFT is operated by José Covas Education Academy, Lda, a Portuguese private limited company (sociedade por quotas), with registered office at Avenida Engenheiro Duarte Pacheco, Torre 1, Piso 2, Escritório 10, 1070-101 Lisbon, Portugal, registered with the Portuguese Commercial Registry under registration and legal person number 519 093 500, share capital EUR 1,000. Email: academy@josecovas.com. Telephone: +351 962 802 463.