White Paper

The UK Commission for Employment and Skills commissioned a qualitative evaluation across a range of investments, including the standards and framework programme, which procures the development of National Occupational Standards (NOS) products, apprenticeship framework products and Vocational Qualification (VQ) products. The evaluation was undertaken from November 2012 to April 2013. It was based primarily around a qualitative case study approach. There were 10 case studies looking at standards and frameworks products (five National Occupational Standard case studies; four Apprenticeship framework case studies; and one Vocational Qualification case study) and 10 case studies on projects funded through the Growth and Innovation Fund Rounds 1 and 2 (GIF) and Employer Investment Fund Phase 2 (EIF). There are two evidence reports: one presents the findings of the standards and frameworks case studies; and a separate report presents the findings from the research undertaken on the GIF and EIF investment programmes.

This report examines skills and performance challenges facing the health and social care sector. It provides a synthesis of evidence on the sector outlook, identifies major trends affecting skills demand, investigates employer perceptions of skills challenges facing specific occupations, and investigates employer awareness of, engagement with and interest in National Occupational Standards. The study focuses on five key occupations in the sector: care assistants, care home managers and proprietors, medical professionals, physiotherapists and nursing auxiliaries.

There are a number of direct applications of AI relevant for national security purposes, both in the United States and elsewhere. Kevin Kelly notes that in the private sector “the business plans of the next 10,000 startups are easy to forecast: Take X and add AI.” There is similarly a broad range of applications for AI in national security. Included below are some examples in cybersecurity, information security, economic and financial tools of statecraft, defense, intelligence, homeland security, diplomacy, and development. This is not intended as a comprehensive list of all possible uses of AI in these fields. Rather, these are merely intended as illustrative examples to help those in the national security community begin to think through some uses of this evolving technology. (The next section covers how broader AI-driven economic and societal changes could affect international security.)

The idea of a skills gap suggests that employers have jobs available but cannot find skilled applicants because higher education is poorly aligned with workforce needs. This idea is shaping higher education and workforce development policy at the national and state levels, yet limited research exists on the experiences of employers and educators with skills needs, teaching and training, and cross-sector relations. Using field theory to conceptualize the complex relations among specific industrial and educational contexts, the skills valued by actors within them (i.e., cultural capital), and how college-to-workforce transitions involve moving from one field to the next, we analyze interview data from 145 educators and employers. Results indicate a shared view that skills are not simply "skills" nor are they reducible to occupational categories, but instead involve complex habits of mind that encompass cognitive, inter-, and intra-personal competencies. Analyses also highlight the importance of active learning to cultivate these competencies, the paucity of workplace training, widespread use of screening for "culture fit" as part of hiring, and the existence of multiple forms of cross-sector partnerships that cultivate students' social and cultural capital. We conclude that the skills gap, and the current focus on structural solutions such as career pathway programs and apprenticeships, is an incomplete response to a complex, cultural, and pedagogical problem. Instead, policymakers should focus on supporting the "skills infrastructure" in a systemic fashion by investing in teacher professional development, career services, and a variety of cross-field partnerships. Ultimately, we conclude that by narrowing ideas about the purpose of higher education to a sole focus on vocational preparation, the skills gap idea is fueling policies and practices that undermine the interests of employers, students, and society.

This publication, commissioned jointly with the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), improves our understanding of the workings of the labour market and the ability of the labour market to meet the skill needs of employers. The analysis within this review will help inform the methodology used by the MAC to identify occupations that are considered to be skilled, suffering from shortages and which it would be sensible to fill through migration. It is recognised that where skill shortages exist, they are economically damaging, and that meeting employers’ skill needs is essential for economic success. Reducing skill shortages would contribute to the UK Commission’s ambition of raising prosperity and opportunity in the UK, both by enabling employers to operate with greater efficiency, and by helping individuals to access the opportunities available to them. And the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) has been charged with identifying occupations in which shortages of skilled labour cannot readily be filled from within the domestic labour market, potentially justifying inward migration of individuals from outside the European Economic Area (EEA). This publication seeks to answer key questions about the existence of skill shortages and needs, and also explores how they can be measured.

Views on what is happening to labor demand in the middle of the U.S. labor market are strongly divergent. Many economists argue that the middle is “hollowing out” as a result of digital technologies and globalization that make it easy for employers to replace workers doing routine tasks. But many employers argue they can’t fill the middle-skill jobs they have. My own calculations based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that the traditional middle of the job market – composed primarily of construction, production and clerical jobs that require fairly little education – has indeed been declining rapidly. But another set of middle-skill jobs – requiring more postsecondary education or training - in health care, mechanical maintenance and repair and some services - is consistently growing, as are skill needs within traditionally unskilled jobs. Among these are the ones that employers have had trouble filling. While many employers have done little to attract new workers by raising wages or investing in training, some employer reluctance to invest in skill-building on their own makes economic sense; and our educational system has done too little to generate employees with these skills as well. A new set of education and training policies and practices are hopeful in this regard, though policies to more directly expand the numbers of middle-paying jobs might also be needed.

The aim of this report is to provide new insights on the role of four emerging technologies: Cyber Security; Mobile technologies; Green IT and Cloud Computing, in driving high level skills needs in the Digital sector. This report combines data analysis, literature reviews and qualitative interviews with over twenty employers and experts to provide a comprehensive assessment on the nature of skills needs, job roles and career pathways for these technologies.

The aim of the Review of Employer Collective Measures study is to identify credible research from across the four countries of the UK, and other applicable international evidence, to shed light on how the level, nature and quality of training may be improved. The study comprises several separate reviews. The conceptual review outlines the economic theory relating to sub-optimal investments in training, and the policy review looks at the evaluative evidence in relation to those measures which might increase the take-up of training. The reviews are intended to advise which policy levers might most effectively increase employer investment, direct or indirect, in training. This report, the empirical review, sits between the conceptual and policy reviews. It provides evidence of: (i) the extent of employers' investments in training; (ii) the factors which persuade employers to train; and (iii) the barriers to training faced by employers.

The aim of the study is to assess the strategic skill needs of the bio-medical sector. This sector has been defined as the combination of the pharmaceutical, medical biotechnology, and medical technologies sectors; in other words, those industries which produce the drugs, therapies, and equipment for the health care system in the UK and abroad. Because of major scientific breakthroughs over recent years which have the scope to radically improve the well being of the population - especially those currently suffering or at risk of chronic illness – the industry is very much seen as one with colossal future potential. From an employment and skills perspective there are many uncertainties relating to the situation in England but, on balance, the outlook is an optimistic one. England currently has an enviable position in the global market given the level of research and development activity which is concentrated in the country, especially around Cambridge and the corridor from the west of London and along the Thames Valley towards Oxford. It also has a substantial manufacturing capacity to be found across the country but notably in the North West and South East.