The report summarizes selected findings from two parallel national surveys - one of 501 business executives at private sector and nonprofit organizations and another of 500 hiring managers whose current job responsibilities include recruiting, interviewing, and/or hiring new employees. Both executives and hiring managers express a higher degree of confidence in colleges and universities than does the American public. They also agree upon the value of college and believe that it is both important and worth the investment of time and money., Additionally, consistent with findings from six earlier surveys commissioned by AAC&U as part of its ongoing Liberal Education and America's Promise (LEAP) initiative, employers overwhelmingly endorse broad learning and cross-cutting skills as the best preparation for long-term career success. When hiring, executives and hiring managers place a high priority on graduates' demonstrated proficiency in skills and knowledge that cut across majors, and hiring managers are closely aligned with executives in the importance that they place on key college learning outcomes. The college learning outcomes that both audiences rate as most important include oral communication, critical thinking, ethical judgment, working effectively in teams, written communication, and the real-world application of skills and knowledge.

Technological change is ushering us into the biggest transformation of the working environment since the Industrial Revolution. Our modelling estimates that 31 per cent of current jobs in New Zealand's workforce could be automated over the next 20 years. This report looks at key emerging trends that are likely to affect our working environment over the next 20 years. The report is structured around the following themes: (1) the economic environment in which we operate covers the overarching external trends affecting the economy and the workplace; (2) demographic trends and their challenges looks at population projections and their implications for the labour supply; and (3) the changing nature of education and training examines the future of tertiary education given the findings from the previous two sections. The report concludes that the disruption to the workplace over the next 20 years offers significant opportunity for New Zealand to improve its economic outcomes. Demand for workers with relevant and transferable skills will be stronger than ever. And appropriate planning and innovation in the education sector will help give all New Zealanders the chance to benefit from the economic transformation that is underway.

Foundation Apprenticeships (FA) were first introduced in 2014. They provide work-based learning (WBL) opportunities for secondary school pupils making their senior phase subject choices. Fas have been designed and developed with industry and Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA), and are aligned to key sectors of the economy with current skills shortages and projected future jobs growth. Strong international evidence from economies that perform well suggests that softening the divide between academic and WBL is pivotal to the design of future skills systems. Fas address this by offering a blend of academic and WBL for young people in the senior phase of secondary school. They are designed to foster seamless pathways between academic and WBL opportunities, and multiple progression routes on completion. The FA programme is delivered through partnerships between schools, a local college or learning provider, and local employers. Fas provide industry-recognised qualifications in key sectors where there is a real need for skilled employees. Fas are based on existing and successful, industry-endorsed, Modern Apprenticeship frameworks and they enable pupils to complete elements of a Modern Apprenticeship while still in school. This is the first report specific to the Foundation Apprenticeship programme. As the programme is very new, and in its initial phases of roll-out, data is provided to describe its early evolution.

Forecasting the Future Demand for High Level ICT Skills in Ireland, 2017-2022, which was a key input into the development of the third ICT Skills Action Plan, Technology Skills 2022, marks the continuation of the EGFSN’s supporting role to the ICT Skills Action Plan process- a previous study, 2013’s Addressing Future Demand for High Level ICT Skills informed the development of the ICT Skills Action Plan 2014-2018. The report is a qualitative and quantitative overview of the market, technology and service trends, and demand for High Level ICT Skills in Ireland over the period 2017 to 2022. ‘High level’ is defined as those skills required for designing, building and implementing high level ICT systems i.e. Computer and Electrical/Electronic engineering skills at NFQ Levels 6/7 and Levels 8+. This excludes primarily ICT user skills.

For the first time, the Council of the European Union has invited a group of national experts to investigate skills, training and knowledge transfer in the heritage professions in Europe. The group was operational in 2017 and 2018 under the Work Plan for Culture 2015-2018, with the support of the European Commission. This report is intended to be a resource for the European Union (EU) to ensure the long-term sustainability of Europe’s cultural heritage. It aims to do this by contributing to the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018 objective ‘to support the development of specialised skills and improve knowledge management and knowledge transfer in the cultural heritage sector, taking into account the implications of the digital shift’. It will also contribute to the European Framework for Action on Cultural Heritage, launched by the European Commission with the aim of leaving a policy imprint beyond 2018.

The Edge Foundation, the Department for Education in England and City and Guilds funded and participated in an Inquiry entitled, 'Policy and policy learning across the four countries of the UK: the case of further education and skills', to compare the skills and further education (FE) systems across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The project revolved around six thematic seminars, one in each of the four countries and a further two in London to begin and conclude the programme. Themes included: aims and principles for FE and skills policy; the role of employers in education and skills; the role and governance of FE colleges; policy levers (funding, inspection, performance tables); meeting employer and learners needs and demands; learning in the workplace; and the role of localities and regions., The final report provides a summary of some of the key ideas that were discussed during the Inquiry. The report begins with a short discussion of the conceptual ideas that lay behind the seminar series. It continues by providing brief, factual profiles of the context for FE and skills in the four countries and a series of vignettes depicting 'interesting practice' in the five jurisdictions and a section on common challenges across the UK and where policy learning might take place. The report concludes with some ideas about next steps for building on the seminar series to keep the learning process alive.

The Employment Insurance (EI) program is a core component of Canada’s social safety net and provides vital income support to workers when they lose employment, as well as access to skills-training supports. However, as Canada’s labour market undergoes significant changes, the program is leaving too many people behind and is not well-structured to cope with the large-scale disruptions that lie around the corner. The future of work will be characterized by structural changes in the labour market, largely driven by new technologies. It will likely mean greater precarity and the continued erosion of traditional employment relationships for Canadian workers. More part-time, temporary and self-employed workers, tenuous attachment to the labour force, and long spells of unemployment will all be more common. These changes are already causing many to fall outside of the EI umbrella today, as many workers are not eligible to qualify for EI or even contribute to the program. As these trends continue, they will further expose three fundamental flaws with EI: 1. The program will continue to leave too many behind, with no protection against the risk of unemployment; 2. The evidentiary basis used to justify the regionally based formula for eligibility and benefit levels will continue to erode, leading to an increasingly unfair ineligibility of many workers from the EI program; and 3. The design flaws of EI will continue to ripple through the skills training system, creating barriers for Canada’s most vulnerable to improving their employability. Addressing these issues will require more than simple tinkering with measures to expand eligibility around the margins. To ensure that Canadian workers are properly supported in light of ongoing and emerging trends related to the future of work, these problems must be addressed through bold and fundamental reform of the entire system of unemployment supports

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This Report reviews the main results of some 60 years of collaboration between the European Union (EU) and the International Labour Office (ILO) and coincides with the 100th anniversary of the ILO. Started in 1958, EU-ILO collaboration has intensified over recent years, covering an ever-greater range of issues to address the future of work and the challenges it poses to the sustainability of decent work and social protection. This document was prepared by Policy Department A at the request of the Employment and Social Affairs Committee.