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The role of career adaptability in skills supply (technical)

There are two separate, but inter-related reports for this study. The first comprises the main document and reports on the findings from the research study and presents an analysis of the findings. This, the second document, is the ‘Technical Report’, which details the research approach and methodology implemented to examine career adaptability. The Technical Report is divided into five sections, including this introduction. The introduction reports on the research approach adopted and details the international dimension of the study. The second section provides an account of the primary data collection undertaken in the UK reporting on the design and pilot of the interview guide, data collection and the sampling methodology. The third section reviews the secondary data analysis and sampling methodology undertaken with interviews carried out in Norway in 2010. The fourth section discusses the data analysis phase of the study, including the development of the framework for analysis and the process of analysing and interpreting the results of the interviews. The final section of the report summarises the key findings and issues arising from the methodology adopted. The appendices include the interview guide and participant consent form from the UK and Norway interviews.
Reference

Measuring adult literacy and life skills: New Frameworks for assessment

The first part of this publication provides the reader with an overview of policy issues that motivated the EIAA study which inspired ALL. It identifies the explicit objectives for the ALL study, the pragmatic considerations that influenced the design and documents the overall method development and validation of instruments implemented in the framework of the study. The rest of the first part (chapters 2 and 3) evokes the development of the ALL study from the general theory that underlies the assessment to the research and development that led to the final design. It tells the reader thinking that motivated the choice of areas of expertise, the process of developing evaluation frameworks and related instruments in each area, the validation method of assessment instruments, inclusion criteria measures in international comparative assessment of skills and case work on the development of ALL produce measures of sufficient quality. [googletranslate_en]
Reference

Travail industriel à l'ère du numérique: Se former aux compétences de demain

The transition to the future of industry is a major challenge for companies. It is based on new production methods that can produce in a shorter time, more properly, sometimes "tailored" to customer demand and offer new services. The discussions are focused on the technological dimension of these transformations so that human and organizational issues are equally important. In most cases, these are only addressed in terms of quantity, reduced to the persistent question of the impact of automation on employment. It is entirely legitimate to question the volume of jobs affected by the industrial changes but we must ensure that the most pessimistic forecasts do not become self-fulfilling prophecies. The underlying technological and organizational changes affect the content of the tasks to employees and their required skills. French industry will go upmarket and get out of a competition based on cost of inputs (energy and raw materials, purchased services and especially the cost of labor) if it is firmly committed to this transformation. Beyond the development and ownership of the necessary technology, it will rely on qualified employees, able to learn new skills as technology changes. They will also work in most organizations moving, less hierarchical and based on a communication much denser. It is a challenge for individuals who need to acquire during their initial training and throughout their life and technical skills necessary relational. It is a challenge for businesses, which will attract talent and invest more today in the ongoing training of their employees. It is a challenge for the territories and states, which must anticipate change and support people whose jobs are transformed or threatened use to help them develop the skills to stay active. Five modes of action p [googletranslate_en]
Reference

The role of career adaptability in skills supply (evidence)

The need to re-balance the economy to secure economic recovery, renewal and growth, in parallel with achieving increased efficiency gains in public spending has been recognised as critical by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills. With eighty per cent of the 2020 workforce already in work, it is clear that: ‘We must fix the ‘stock’ of adult skills as well as the ‘flow’ of young people into the labour market’ (UKCES, 2010, p. 103). What is missing in this analysis of the skills problem, however, is a sense of the progression of individuals through work across the life course, particularly insofar as this involves movement between sectors. As a consequence, the dynamic way in which individuals become engaged with learning and development pathways, which can involve up-skilling, re-skilling and sometimes transformational shifts in perspective as their careers unfold, has remained largely absent from current policy analysis in this area. This study examines the potential of the concept of career adaptability for increasing the quality of careers support services and enabling individuals to become self-sufficient by supporting themselves. Career adaptability could also fit with the goal of enhancing high performance working (Felstead et al., 2011). The inter-relationship between career adaptability and employability is considered alongside relevant policy initiatives that could benefit, potentially, from the adoption of career adaptability both by individuals and organisations. Findings highlight the need for a stronger policy framework that helps motivate and inspire individuals to take action at different ages and stages in the life course (that is, new ways of combining learning, earning and active citizenship). Individuals have a wide range of goals, aspirations, achievements and identities, which emerge in a variety of community contexts, institutions, qualification structures and labour markets. Those who do not engage in substantive up-skilling or re-skilling through either formal learning or learning through work, for periods of five to ten years, run the risk of being 'locked into' a particular way of working. They become more vulnerable in the role of careers adaptability in skills supply in labour market, especially where there is a significant change in their job or their circumstances, because their ability to be adaptable with regard to their career progression can decay. Findings from this study indicate that adopting a competency approach1 What is ‘career adaptability’? to developing career adaptive behaviour could provide a useful framework to promote the need for individuals to adopt certain behaviours to help realise their career aspirations. Additionally, this approach offers a potentially constructive framework for raising awareness of self-defeating behaviours in which some individuals may be inclined to engage.
Reference

Industrie du futur: concepts et état des lieux

France has launched since 2013 in the way of the "industry of the future" and following the footsteps of countries such as Germany. Concept blur and abundant, "the industry of the future" is nevertheless become over the months a major focus of the French industrial policy scope as the standard of the French Industrial Renewal. The strong mobilization around the "Industry of the Future" program not only to direct public funding towards the modernization of the industry but also to launch a wide debate on the future of manufacturing in France. [googletranslate_en]
Reference

Singapore perspectives 2012 - Singapore inclusive: Bridging divides: Inequality and the need for a new social compact

Income inequality in Singapore has risen significantly in the last decade. Whether measured by the Gini coefficient, or by the ratio of incomes between the top and bottom deciles, the evidence points to an incontrovertible fact: Singapore has become more unequal in the last ten years or so. In addition, there are certain characteristics of inequality patterns in Singapore that make it especially worrying.
Reference

How computer automation affects occupations: Technology, jobs, and skills

This paper investigates basic relationships between technology and occupations. Building a general occupational model, I look at detailed occupations since 1980 to explore whether computers are related to job losses or other sources of wage inequality. Occupations that use computers grow faster, not slower. This is true even for highly routine and mid-wage occupations. Estimates reject computers as a source of significant net technological unemployment or job polarization. But computerized occupations substitute for other occupations, shifting employment and requiring new skills. Because new skills are costly to learn, computer use is associated with substantially greater within-occupation wage inequality.
Reference

Industry 4.0: A challenge and a chance

Putting the client first, Industry 4.0 guarantees better products, more efficient production methods and bespoke industrial services. The comprehensive interconnection of processes in production, logistics and services is a huge issue at practically every large manufacturer in Europe. In the US and Asia, too, it is the definitive changing force of the era. Cyber-physical systems might form the basis of the next industrial revolution. Its influence is trickling down through every sector of industry and the wider economy. Industry 4. is already changing the landscape of competition with far-reaching consequences for the workforce and infrastructure as a whole. In a nutshell, Industry 4.0 is nothing more than a fully integrated, value creation system – with huge impact on Return On Capital Employed (ROCE) for both industry and nation states. For the first time such concepts as cyber security, big data and advanced manufacturing can all be brought under one virtual roof to satisfy the mass customization demands of society, reap the benefits of the internet revolution and perhaps most importantly finally begin to take the word sustainability seriously and treat resources with more respect. The path ahead however is littered with obstacles and achieving this land of digital milk and honey will be anything but easy. Lot-size-one production at cost of mass products will change consumer behaviour.
Reference

Structural transformation in the OECD: Digitalisation, deindustrialisation and the future of work

In tandem with the diffusion of computer technologies, labour markets across the OECD have undergone rapid structural transformation. In this paper, we examine i) the impact of technological change on labour market outcomes since the computer revolution of the 1980s, and ii) recent developments in digital technology – including machine learning and robotics – and their potential impacts on the future of work. While it is evident that the composition of the workforce has shifted dramatically over recent decades, in part as a result of technological change, the impacts of digitalisation on the future of jobs are far from certain. On the one hand, accumulating anecdotal evidence shows that the potential scope of automation has expanded beyond routine work, making technological change potentially increasingly labour-saving: according to recent estimates 47 percent of US jobs are susceptible to automation over the forthcoming decades. On the other hand, there is evidence suggesting that digital technologies have not created many new jobs to replace old ones: an upper bound estimate is that around 0.5 percent of the US workforce is employed in digital industries that emerged throughout the 2000s. Nevertheless, at first approximation, there is no evidence to suggest that the computer revolution so far has reduced overall demand for jobs as technologically stagnant sectors of the economy – including health care, government and personal services – continue to create vast employment opportunities. Looking forward, however, we argue that as the potential scope of automation is expanding, many sectors that have been technologically stagnant in the past are likely to become technologically progressive in the future. While we should expect a future surge in productivity as a result, the question of whether gains from increases in productivity will be widely shared depends on policy responses.