This paper asks to what extent host language proficiency can insure immigrants against the risk of ending up in mismatched jobs. Using the 2003-2016 waves of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA), the paper discriminates between three forms of mismatch, overqualification, under-qualification and over-skilling. Host language proficiency is instrumented using Bleakley and Chin (Rev Econ Stat 86:481-496, 2004) strategy, which exploits the fact that younger children learn languages more easily than older ones. To differentiate between local average treatment effects (LATE) and average treatment effects (ATE), the paper considers two alternative models, 2SLS instrumental variables and biprobit. We find that treatment effects are heterogeneous. English language proficiency among immigrants in Australia reduces the probability of ending up in over-qualified jobs, by between 17.2 (LATE) and 36.7 (ATE) percentage points. The ATE of over-skilling is also significant and about -8.9 percentage points. In contrast, language skills tend to raise the probability of being under-qualified at the job, by about 8.6 percentage points according to the ATE. Local effects of over-skilling and underqualification fail to be statistically significant, suggesting that host language proficiency may be innocuous for some workers. Overall, the results indicate that host language proficiency is a country-specific, valuable form of human capital.

This study uses the [Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies] PIAAC data to examine the relationships between education system characteristics (e.g. early tracking and vocational education orientation) and distributions of adult numeracy skills. It also investigates the effects of postponing the tracking age and easing university access for students on a vocational track on the average skills and different percentiles of the skills distribution. Correlational analysis suggests that education systems with more students enrolled in vocational tracks have on average higher levels of numeracy skills and more compressed skills distributions between the 50th and 90th percentiles. Further analysis suggests that postponing the tracking age among 14 European countries does not have a significant effect on the average skills of the population. However, it increases skills for individuals at the 10th, 20th, and 30th percentiles of the skill distribution. Expanding university access is associated with an increase in numeracy skills, particularly for individuals at the bottom three deciles of the distribution.

In 2012, the International Labour Conference issued a resolution with a call for action to tackle the unprecedented youth employment crisis through a set of policy measures. The resolution provides guiding principles and a package of inter-related policies for countries wanting to take immediate and targeted action to address the crisis of youth labour markets. This paper is part of follow-up action on knowledge building co-ordinated by the ILO's Youth Employment Programme (YEP). In the current global context of complex economic challenges, skills and employability have emerged as a key priority for policy makers. In this context, the need for more effective work-based learning practices has become increasingly important. This paper examines the different forms of work-based learning, and takes stock of available data on the labour market impact [of] such schemes where they exist. It considers structured apprenticeships, internships, traineeships and other programmes that include a work-based learning component. The paper finds evidence of positive impacts of formal structured work-based learning, and argues that future efforts should encourage engagement with private sector firms in creating and expanding such structured opportunities for young people.

While digital technology plays an increasingly important role in our lives, and political systems are mobilizing to make the most of its leverage effect on innovation and economic growth, 56 per cent of adults lack digital skills, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). This report looks at the conditions impacting the development of digital skills based on five international comparative surveys, the results of which reveal a sample group of twelve countries [Australia, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong (China), Ireland, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway, Republic of Korea, Singapore and Sweden] whose population have particularly high levels of digital skills. Building on these results, this report seeks to answer two questions: what has enabled these countries to rise to the top of the rankings in terms of digital skills, and what can other countries to do catch up?; Comparison between the different surveys confirms that factors affecting the level of children's digital skills include: age at which children are acquainted with information technology; nature and level of diversity of online activities; and level of ICT use by teachers. Adults' skills are more widely determined by socio-economic factors, especially the level of educational attainment, indicating a link between inequalities in education and levels of digital skills. The report also shows a knock-on effect of digital skills, which can be positive or negative. Analysis of the characteristics of the best-performing countries reveals that other factors indirectly impact the development of digital skills by laying the groundwork for an enabling environment: quality of infrastructure, level of digitization of businesses and quality of digital content. Consideration of education and labour market policies in the countries in the sample group highlights good practices, such as monitoring the level of digital skills, integration of digital technology in the global education ecosystem (beyond ICT lessons), supporting educational reforms with proper teacher training and fighting against digital exclusion which often leads to social exclusion. Ultimately, this report shows that to achieve the best conditions for the development of digital skills, public authorities must pursue efforts in two areas: policies that create a supportive framework, and sectoral policies for basic and further training. To ensure that these policies are as relevant as possible, they must design through collaboration between governments, educational and training institutions and businesses.

This paper studies the effects of a voluntary skill certification scheme in an online freelancing labour market. The paper show that obtaining skill certificates increases a worker’s earnings. This effect is not driven by increased worker productivity but by decreased employer uncertainty. The increase in worker earnings is mostly realised through an increase in the value of the projects obtained (up to 10%) rather than an increase in the number of projects obtained (up to 0.03 projects). In addition, the paper finds evidence for negative selection to completing skill certificates, which suggests that the workers who complete more skill certificates are, on average, in a more disadvantaged position in the labour market. Finally, skill certificates are found to be an imperfect substitute to other types of standardised information. On the whole, the results suggest that certificates play a role in helping new workers break into the labour market, but are more valuable to workers with at least some work experience. More stringent skill certification tests could improve the benefits to new workers.

This paper reviews the different definitions and measures of skills use and shows why it matters for local development policies. Based on findings from the Annual Population Survey and the UK Employer Skills Survey, it provides unique local analysis on how the Leeds City Region compares on skills use relative to other Local Enterprise Partnerships. It then outlines opportunities for new actions that could be implemented in the Leeds City Region to work closer with firms to promote skills use in the workplace.

Australia has seen large rises in living standards over the last decades across the whole of the income distribution. Technological change and international trade have contributed to this success, but have also brought structural change. Some industries have declined, while others flourished. Furthermore, new technologies and structural change create new skills and new tasks, boosting demand for some jobs, while making others disappear. Although technology and globalisation have not decreased overall employment, certain people, groups, and communities have undergone disruptive change and experienced falling living standards. Some groups face a higher risk of poverty and laid-off workers can have difficulty finding a new job. Well-informed and well-targeted policy is therefore needed to ensure that the benefits of technology and globalisation are widely shared. This paper focuses on policies to ensure that everyone in Australia has the opportunity to benefit from technological change and globalisation. The paper assesses policies relating to three issues: i) labour markets and active labour market policies; ii) education and skills; to ensure adequate skills for accessing good quality jobs; and iii) urban environments, ensuring that Australia's highly urbanised population can adapt to change.

We review a highly influential study that estimated potential job loss from advances in Artificial Intelligence and robotics: Frey and Osborne (FO) (2013, 2017) concluded that 47 per cent of jobs in the United States were at ‘high risk’ of automation in the next 10 to 20 years. First, we investigate FO’s methodology for estimating job loss. Several major problems and limitations are revealed; especially associated with the subjective designation of occupations as fully automatable. Second, we examine whether FO’s predictions can explain occupationlevel changes in employment in the United States from 2013 to 2018. Compared to standard approaches which classify jobs based on their intensity in routine tasks, FO’s predictions do not ‘add value’ for forecasting the impact of technology on employment.

We investigate the macroeconomic impact of public expenditure in active and passive labour market policies on main employment indicators (i.e. unemployment, employment and labour force participation) for a panel database of 121 countries (36 developed, 64 emerging and 21 developing economies). Following previous contributions, we implement an instrumental variable strategy to take into account the possible reverse causality between labour market outcomes and spending in labour market policies. Compared to previous studies, (i) we include for the first time evidence from non-OECD countries; and (ii) we examine the possible presence of complementarities between active and passive policies. We find that the interaction between interventions is crucial as the effect of spending in either of the two policies is more favourable the more is spent on the other. In particular, we find that even spending in passive policies can have positive labour market effects (i.e. reduction in unemployment and increase in employment rates) on the condition that sufficient amounts are spent in active interventions. This complementarity is driven by the interaction between all types of active policies and unemployment insurance (but not assistance). However, this positive complementarity is in place only in developed economies while it becomes negative in emerging and developing economies.