The future of work is about talent, not technology. In 'Future Fit,' author Andrea Clarke says that if we want to outrun the algorithm to stay secure in the future of work, we need to upgrade our own capability in ways we may not have considered. As artificial intelligence is adopted into the workplace and traditional employee arrangements transform, we're heading into a far less structured era of work. For organisations, it means re-imagining talent models, re-skilling the workforce and re-defining business practices for a digital age. For individuals, it means the onus of responsibility for finding, securing and delivering work lies with us more than ever before. While the fault-line is clear, so is the opportunity: those who take their 'human skills' to the next level will be powerfully differentiated in a dynamic and demanding new market. Drawing on a fascinating international career spanning TV journalism, foreign aid, and corporation communication, Clarke's new book will equip you with the eight critical human skills we all need to invest in for a new working environment. From Reputation Capital, Communication, Adaptability, and Creativity to Networking, Leadership, Problem Solving and Continuous Learning, you'll also learn how to deploy these core FutureFit skills in new and modern ways.

The report draws on 32 national studies, whose findings also contributed to the ILO’s World Economic and Social Outlook 2018: Greening with jobs, and was produced in partnership with the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop), which prepared national reports in six EU Member States. The report builds on its predecessor, Skills for green jobs: A global view, published by the ILO in 2011. This new edition presents an expanded qualitative analysis, with coverage of several additional countries and regions. It is a ground-breaking piece of empirical research and modelling, providing new insights into likely occupational skill effects in declining and growing industries by 2030 based on two global quantitative scenarios. Evidence of good practices collected in the surveyed countries demonstrates how skills development can underpin the green transition.

This report provides a snapshot of today’s Australian labour market, the forces that are shaping it, and the blind-spots that need to be addressed if we are to succeed in a competitive and disruptive 21st century global economy.

This paper provides an analysis of global policy settings and provider initiatives around international student employability. It includes preliminary findings of a new study on the uptake of post-study work rights in Australia, as well as case studies from New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Europe.

For Australia to compete in the global economy, our university graduates need to be career-ready. This means they need to be flexible, adaptive and able to apply their technical skills to real-world situations. To support the acquisition of these skills, universities offer a broad range of opportunities for students to engage with the workforce while they undertake their degree. Work integrated learning – or WIL – is an umbrella term that refers to a range of practical experiences designed to give students valuable exposure to work-related activities relevant to their course of study. To produce the highly skilled workforce that the community and industry needs, universities and employers partner to offer students internships, projects, simulations, fieldwork and other activities. Over the past few years, universities have increased support to employers so they can involve students in their organisation. Employers are also increasing and strengthening their links with universities through work placements and project work, which demonstrates that they are recognising the many benefits of WIL. One of the ways that partnerships between universities and employers have been strengthened is through the development of the 2015 National Strategy on Work Integrated Learning in University Education. Universities Australia, the Australian Collaborative Education Network, AiGroup, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Business Council of Australia, the Commonwealth Department of Education and Training and the Office of the Chief Scientist partnered on this Strategy to facilitate deeper connections between universities and employers and to promote the benefits of WIL for all stakeholders. One of the strategy’s actions is to develop a national profile of current WIL activity in the higher education sector, measuring the level of participation in WIL by students enrolled in Australia’s universities. In 2018, Universities Australia (UA) undertook a national survey of the WIL activities that occurred in 2017 across Australia’s 39 comprehensive universities. The survey is the first data collection of its kind, and the survey results provide the higher education sector with a baseline from which to measure progress. The results clearly demonstrate the extent and diversity of WIL activities across the higher education sector and reflect the commitment of universities to improving graduate employability. The survey results have also provided a nuanced understanding of the experiences of particular student cohorts in accessing and undertaking WIL, such as international students, Indigenous students, and students from low socio-economic backgrounds. This understanding is critical to improving the breadth and depth of WIL opportunities so that all students – regardless of their culture, ethnicity or background – can benefit

Innovative ways of working with Indigenous Australians are needed to improve their employment prospects, especially as many work in jobs that are most likely to be impacted by digitalisation and automation in the future. This report considers both quantitative and qualitative data regarding employment, skills, and entrepreneurship opportunities for Indigenous Australians. A number of case studies were undertaken with employment and training providers in the cities of Sydney and Perth to gain insights into the delivery of employment and skills programmes targeted to Indigenous Australians. The report highlights critical success factors to better link Indigenous Australians to high quality jobs while also providing recommendations regarding future employment and skills programming.

This study assesses whether high school science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses provide non-college bound youth with the skills and training necessary to successfully transition from high school into the STEM economy. Specifically, [the] study estimates the effects that advanced math, advanced science, engineering, and computer science courses in high school have on the probability that non-college bound youth will obtain employment in the STEM economy and on wages within two years of graduating from high school. [The] findings indicate that STEM coursework is unrelated with the probability of securing a job in the STEM economy and is unrelated with wages two years post high school graduation.

Government efforts to improve the quality and take-up of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) skills have yielded some positive results. There remains, however, an urgent need for departments to set out a shared view of what they are trying to achieve and a co-ordinated plan for achieving it before government can demonstrate that it is delivering value for money, according to today’s report from the National Audit Office. Since the early 2000s there has been growing concern, including from the government, about how to achieve higher productivity and economic growth in an era of rapid technological change. Over time, this has generated the widely held belief that one of the UK’s key economic problems is a shortage of STEM skills in the workforce. Current estimates of the STEM skills problem vary widely and typically focus only on individual sections of the workforce. Existing evidence indicates that there is a STEM skills mismatch rather than a simple shortage. A mismatch can include many types of misalignment between the skills needed and those available in the labour pool. The NAO’s research indicates that there are particular shortages of STEM skills at technician level, but an oversupply in other areas, such as biological science graduates, who are then often underemployed in an economy in which they are not in high demand. Some major science and engineering bodies also believe that exit from the European Union could reduce the availability of STEM skills in the short term. Today’s report finds that a number of the individual initiatives aimed at boosting take-up and provision of STEM education have had a positive impact, and participation levels have grown in most areas of the STEM skills pipeline. STEM A Level entries have grown by around 3% since 2011/12. Starts on STEM apprenticeships have grown by 18%, driven mainly by starts in apprenticeships covering: engineering and manufacturing technologies; and construction, planning and the built environment. Enrolments in full-time undergraduate STEM courses grew by 7% between 2011/12 and 2015/16. However, despite the progress being made in expanding the supply of STEM skills, a historic lack of coordination across government creates a risk that the overall approach is not cohesive, and that individual initiatives intended to boost STEM skills do not add up to a coherent programme of intervention. The success of individual initiatives also masks some ongoing problems. There is a consistent participation gap in terms of gender: in 2016/17, women made up only 9.4% of A Level examination entries in computing, 21.2% in physics, and 39% in mathematics, and just 8% of starts on STEM apprenticeship courses. The areas where participation in higher education STEM courses has grown most strongly also appear to reinforce reported skills mismatches. According to longitudinal research, of the 75,000 people who graduated with a STEM degree in 2016, only around 24% were known to be working in a STEM occupation within six months. The NAO finds that in the schools sector, better training and attempts to attract former teachers back to the workforce show some positive results, according to early stage research on the £67 million maths and physics teacher supply package.

This summary research report1 explores the value of literacy and essential skills (LES) for workers and better quantifies the benefits of training. LES as a related and causal factor for higher wages in the labour market is investigated. Results for the general population are examined, in addition to sub-groups such as journeypersons, Aboriginal peoples, immigrants and persons with disabilities. Results are drawn from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), the 2006 census and various versions of the National Graduate Survey (NGS). Across all three data sets, the research highlights earnings outcomes as the main labour market benefit of LES. These positive research findings contribute to an evidence-based body of knowledge about the importance of LES and will inform future workplace training policies and outreach about the business case for LES training