White Paper

Adapting to the labour market after post-secondary education and finding a job that matches graduates’ skills, while providing a good standard of living, can be a daunting challenge for new graduates.This Commentary investigates whether work-integrated learning (specifically co-op programs) results in higher incomes or other benefits after graduation.It provides an analysis of National Graduate Survey (2013) data to determine (i) the returns to participation in co-op for different fields of study at both the college and university levels, (ii) differential outcomes based on individual characteristics, and (iii) the effects associated with non-monetary success in the labor market. Estimates suggest that co-op programs have significant benefits for participants in the form of eased transition to the labor market and higher incomes after graduation and that they may play a role in overcoming wage gaps associated with bias toward individual characteristics (race, gender, immigration status).

Despite current global economic growth, expansion and opportunity, millennials and Generation Z are expressing uneasiness and pessimism—about their careers, their lives and the world around them, according to Deloitte’s eighth annual Millennial Survey. In the past two years especially, we’ve seen steep declines in respondents’ views on the economy, their countries’ social/political situations, and institutions like government, the media and business. Organizations that can make the future brighter for millennials and Gen Zs stand to have the brightest futures themselves.

The research involved 19 institutions from eight countries and four continents. These institutional partners engaged in fact-finding and theory generation with the common aim of informing current and future employability policies and practices. This work aligned with the diverse aspirations of all higher education stakeholders and fostered communication between colleagues through open dialogue. The core research question was: How is employability termed, driven, and communicated by universities internationally?

Overall the study on which this report is based provides an opportunity to understand the way in which local-national and local-local collaborative working needs to develop if it is to enhance skill development in England. This entailed: identifying how other countries have devolved their skills and employment policy to local or regional levels; undertaking a local case study, that encompassed multiple local authorities - where moves to shape local skills provision to local demand were already in train – to understand how local skills devolution can be best realised. The Black Country in the West Midlands was selected as the case study; reflecting upon the international and local evidence to develop a framework to be used as a tool that will allow local actors to use their combined local knowledge to answer key questions about the context, drivers for change and desired outcomes to enable them to more effectively deliver local skills to meet local needs.

While Australians know the way they work is changing, they are less clear on the skills they need to adapt to new kinds of automation. Does every Australian need to be proficient in a coding language? What will older workers need to know to remain employable? Is it more important for early career workers to develop a technical specialisation or to develop enterprise skills such as communication and leadership? This report helps Australians navigate the major shifts in the future of work by answering three critical questions: What skills do we need to succeed in the future? When during our working lives will we need to learn these skills? How can we adjust work and learning practices to acquire the skills we need? To understand how skill requirements for the Australian workforce are shifting, the report analyses recent changes in more than 300 jobs, more than 2,000 work tasks and more than 500 skills required to complete these tasks. We examine how tasks are changing in our economy, and the skills workers are using more often in response. More importantly, this report translates what we know about the jobs of the future into what it means for the skills of the future. It assesses in detail how much time, in hours, every worker in this country has spent on education and training over their lifetime – and how much these investments in skills will likely need to change by 2040. This approach offers unique insights into the amount of training and education required for each Australian occupation today and in the future. The result is a comprehensive picture of the actual size of the reskilling challenge in this country.

The report Strategies for the New Economy: Making Skills the Currency of the Labour Market presents ten strategies and twenty-two case studies that illustrate the range of actions that can be taken by educationalists, education technologists, business leaders and government to shift to a fully skills-based labour market. The strategies can help prepare the labour market for the future of work and build a new foundation for social mobility. They span a range of approaches: realizing the potential of education technology; building and certifying skills across the age range; designing coherent and portable certifications, mapping the skills content of jobs and aligning existing skills taxonomies.

This Adult, Community and Further Education Board Strategy 2020–25 has been developed based on extensive stakeholder consultation, a scan of the operating environment (including Victorian Government policy directions), and a review of relevant research literature and the Adult, Community and Further Education Board Strategy 2016–19. The Strategy is a primary means to implement the 2019 Statement of the Minister for Training and Skills and Minister for Higher Education on Adult Community Education. The Ministerial Statement establishes priority directions for policy, and this Strategy aligns closely with those directions. Linkages with the Statement are outlined in later sections of the Strategy. This strategy establishes a blueprint for adult community and further education in Victoria for the next six years and is the primary means by which the Ministerial Statement will be implemented. In fulfilment of the Adult, Community and Further Education Board’s statutory roles and functions under the Education and Training Reform Act 2006, the Strategy responds to trends and challenges in the Learn Local sector, including changes in learner needs, changing modes of skills acquisition, changes in place-based models, changes in industry and the nature of work, policy and regulatory changes at the State and Commonwealth Government levels, and changes in society more generally. Above all, it reflects the right of people to access core education and training.

This paper questions whether the previous assumptions underpinning vocational qualifications for Australia are still valid. Much has changed since the development of national curriculum in the 1980s and then the implementation of Training Packages in 1996. While the world of work has changed dramatically, individuals entering work have correspondingly different expectations, needs and potentially a complex, multifaceted journey to navigate. When the existing qualifications architecture was designed the internet was in its infancy, email yet to be deployed, smart phones unimagined and digitisation was in the realm of science fiction. The skills and capabilities required to enter and stay in the workforce in the 2020s and beyond are different than in the 1990s. While some skills remain constant, many new ones have been added and the balance has shifted and continues to shift. No longer are we developing qualifications for a world where your entry qualification is designed set you up for the remainder of your working life.

This research considers the likely demand for skills over the next seven years, the current skill levels of people living in the UK and highlights the underutilisation of millions of working age Britons. We worked with economic modellers Emsi to consider the size of the UK jobs market and the rate at which it is forecast to grow between now and 2027, with a spotlight specifically on Mayoral Authority areas. We have looked at these areas as they have a devolved adult education budget and are, therefore, able to make their own decisions about how and where they spend money on skills development and resolve issues that are uncovered. In these areas we have considered the number of high skilled jobs6 that are needed and how this is likely to change over the coming years. We also polled 5,000 working age people to understand the types of formal education and workplace training they have received, if they believe that the skills they have attained have been useful and give an understanding of how people’s experiences of training and job opportunity vary across the country. 6 High skilled jobs = These are defined as Levels 1-3 occupations on the Standard Occupation Classification (SOC) i.e. Managers, Directors and Senior Officials; Professional Occupations; and Associate Professional and Technical Occupations. Missing Millions What we have discovered through this research has been fascinating and highlights the huge challenges we have ahead if we are to unleash the talent of millions of working age people in the UK today. We found that there is a huge opportunity to harness the potential of the underemployed people in society – particularly people from lower socio-economic groups, older workers (those aged 55+), people living outside of London and the South East and part time workers to help us meet the challenges and opportunities that AI and the fourth industrial revolution will bring and ensure the UK remains a global leader in the future.