This guide represents a new tool for skills needs anticipation based on the best international practices and foresight approaches. The current methodology is based on the results of the international workshop "Using technology foresights for identifying future skills needs" held in July 2013, which united foresight experts from all over the world. This guidance tool was prepared to steer experts and practitioners in defining future technological change and related changes in work organisation, job tasks and skills needs.

It is not possible to predict the future. 20 years ago, there was widespread belief among commentators that the defining feature of the future UK labour market would be radically reduced working hours and increased leisure time. Fast forward to 2014, the year in which mobile is set to overtake desktop to access the internet, and work and leisure hours have become blurred by our increasingly ‘mobile’ lives (The Economist, 2012). Jobs are being done on the move, at any time of day, in almost any location. This example highlights the difficulties involved in forecasting change. Yet, the way we think about tomorrow influences what we do today. We do not have definitive answers about what is around the corner, but we can try to systematically make sense of the direction of travel in the labour market and assess the key uncertainties that we know exist. By analysing developments in the UK labour market now, we can start to position ourselves for the work needs and opportunities of the future. As we see welcome signs of a strengthening UK economy, it is an opportune time to take a detailed look at the medium to long-term prospects for the world of work. At the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, our mission is to transform approaches to skills investment to drive enterprise, jobs and growth. This report presents the results of The Future of Work study which looks ahead to the labour market of 2030. It analyses stable trends that are already shaping the future of UK jobs and skills and forecasts the most likely disruptions to those trends. It then plots four anticipated scenarios of what the UK’s work landscape might look like in 2030, and importantly, the skills that will be required under these conditions. The purpose of this report is to trigger debate about investment in skills and inform the decisions facing employers, individuals, policy makers and education providers. At a time when economic optimism is building, we can do more than merely react to developments – we can proactively work towards a positive outcome. Our aim is not to predict a specific future, rather to influence and challenge thinking in a constructive, creative way.

This report was commissioned in response to research evidence showing a positive association between high performance working (HPW) and both skills utilisation and performance at an organisational level. The UK Commission’s previous work on HPW shows that the prevalence of HPW is both low and static in the UK, and the present study is part of a systematic attempt to uncover the means by which broader application of HPW might be encouraged in the UK. Specifically, in order to learn from experience internationally, the research sought to (1) develop understanding of how HPW is interpreted in different national contexts; (2) identify the different methods utilised to encourage and support up-take of HPW; and (3) utilise the understanding of conditions that give rise to HPW being prevalent in some national contexts as a basis for policy learning for the UK.

Governments have come to recognize that income inequality hinders economic growth. How policymakers will support inclusive growth remains to be seen.

A Practical Guide for Work-integrated Learning: Effective Practices to Enhance the Educational Quality of Structured Work Experiences Offered through Colleges and Universities focuses on structured work-integrated learning experiences such as internships, placements, co-ops, field experiences, professional practice and clinical practicums. The comprehensive guide is divided into seven chapters with an introduction to experiential learning theory, followed by background information and suggestions on improving the quality of WIL programs, program evaluation and recommendations for broader curricular integration developing meaningful partnerships with industry, government and community organizations.

This report presents the first results of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), an initiative of OECD. PIAAC provides internationally comparable measures of three skills that are essential to processing information: literacy, numeracy, and problem solving in technology rich environments (referred to as PS-TRE). The report provides information about the literacy, numeracy, and PS-TRE skills for the Canadian population aged 16 to 65. It provides results for Canada as a whole, as well as for all the provinces and territories. In addition, it looks at the relationships between skills proficiency and a range of socio-demographic characteristics (e.g., age, gender, level of education) across the entire Canadian population. It also reports on first results on the literacy, numeracy, and PS-TRE skills of Aboriginal populations, immigrants, and official language minority communities.

Recent discussions of lifelong learning point to problem solving as one of the major competencies to be fostered in a lifelong learning process. Yet, compared to other domains of learning, problem-solving has received less attention in the literature, in part because of a lack of information on this topic. A new report, based on the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (ALL), provides information that helps to address that gap. The Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey assessed four foundation skills thought to be essential for social, professional and economic success – prose literacy, document literacy, numeracy and problem solving. Eleven countries, including Canada, participated in the most recent Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey, which was conducted in two main waves between 2002 and 2008. This article summarizes the key findings reported in that report, focusing on problem-solving skills, their definition, distribution in the labour force and related labour market outcomes. The development of the analytical and measurement frameworks for the skills domains assessed in ALL took account of observations of skills made in the workplace. Figure 1 illustrates one of many models that were developed to understand which skills matter economically. The triangle identifies three hierarchical levels of skill, starting at the bottom with basic skills that are thought to be required by all occupations and hence are considered to be portable between jobs and employers. According to this model, both literacy and numeracy fall into this category. The second layer of the triangle identifies a set of skills that are used in the workplace which are still portable, but which vary across broad industry and occupational groups. Problem-solving skills are positioned in this level. The third level concerns skills that are specific to a particular job or even firm and that are considered to be non-portable in the labour market.

At first glance, the UK seems to have relatively positive levels of employer provided training, with 65% of employers providing training to their staff and international surveys suggesting the proportion of establishments which provide training is higher than in other EU nations. However, almost a quarter of establishments have never funded or arranged training for their staff; less of this training is certified when compared to other EU nations and training also accounts for a lower proportion of labour costs compared to the EU average. Businesses that employ few people and establishments in certain sectors are least likely to fund or arrange training and these patterns have been true for a number of years. Whilst there are a range of reasons why some businesses do not train their staff, there is evidence that those which do, enjoy considerable benefits relating to survival, productivity, employee job satisfaction and lower absentee rates. It is in this context that the UK Commission for Employment and Skills was asked to review the range of policy levers designed to encourage employers to train on a collective basis (Collective Measures), such as levies and Licenses to Practice. The UK Commission undertook extensive literature reviews, on-line consultations, policy prioritisation events with stakeholders and initial economic appraisals, to inform the advice presented in this report. The work began with a review of the conceptual literature on the optimal level of employer investment in skills and training and whether public policy could be used to move closer to these levels. It finds that there are a number of factors which can lead to sub-optimal provision at firm and sector level and that this provides a case for State intervention, providing the benefits of doing so would demonstrably outweigh the costs. It suggests that sectoral intervention is probably the most important way of stimulating skills development in the UK: there is a commonality of skill needs; the likely returns to increasing the pool of skills at the sector level are higher; employers would benefit most from an increased pool of sector skills and should contribute to it; employers are best placed to define skill needs within the pool and a sectoral approach reduces the impact of poaching. It is because not all of these benefits are currently realised, that State intervention is justified.