Employer Voices, Employer Demands, and Implications for Public Skills Development Policy Connecting the Labor and Education Sectors

Educators believe that they are adequately preparing youth for the labor market while at the same time employers lament the students' lack of skills. A possible source of the mismatch in perceptions is that employers and educators have different understandings of the types of skills valued in t...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	Cunningham, Wendy V., Villaseñor, Paula
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	en_US
Published:	Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank 2017
Subjects:	SKILLS DEVELOPMENT LABOR MARKET EDUCATION JOBS SKILLED WORKERS
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27700

id	okr-10986-27700
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-277002021-05-25T10:54:42Z Employer Voices, Employer Demands, and Implications for Public Skills Development Policy Connecting the Labor and Education Sectors Cunningham, Wendy V. Villaseñor, Paula SKILLS DEVELOPMENT LABOR MARKET EDUCATION JOBS SKILLED WORKERS Educators believe that they are adequately preparing youth for the labor market while at the same time employers lament the students' lack of skills. A possible source of the mismatch in perceptions is that employers and educators have different understandings of the types of skills valued in the labor market. Using economics and psychology literature to define four skills sets—socio-emotional, higher-order cognitive, basic cognitive, and technical—this paper reviews the literature that quantitatively measures employer skill demand, as reported in a preference survey. A sample of 27 studies reveals remarkable consistency across the world in the skills demanded by employers. While employers value all skill sets, there is a greater demand for socio-emotional skills and higher-order cognitive skills than for basic cognitive or technical skills. These results are robust across region, industry, occupation, and education level. Employers perceive that the greatest skills gaps are in socio-emotional and higher-order cognitive skills. These findings suggest the need to re-conceptualize the public sector's role in preparing children for a future labor market. Namely, technical training is not equivalent to job training; instead, a broad range of skills, many of which are best taught long before labor market entry, should be included in school curricula from the earliest ages. The skills most demanded by employers—higher-order cognitive skills and socio-emotional skills—are largely learned or refined in adolescence, arguing for a general education well into secondary school until these skills are formed. Finally, the public sector can provide programming and incentives to non-school actors, namely parents and employers, to encourage them to invest in the skills development process. 2017-08-09T22:00:36Z 2017-08-09T22:00:36Z 2016-02 Journal Article World Bank Research Observer 1564-6971 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27700 en_US CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank Publications & Research :: Journal Article Publications & Research
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	en_US
topic	SKILLS DEVELOPMENT LABOR MARKET EDUCATION JOBS SKILLED WORKERS
spellingShingle	SKILLS DEVELOPMENT LABOR MARKET EDUCATION JOBS SKILLED WORKERS Cunningham, Wendy V. Villaseñor, Paula Employer Voices, Employer Demands, and Implications for Public Skills Development Policy Connecting the Labor and Education Sectors
description	Educators believe that they are adequately preparing youth for the labor market while at the same time employers lament the students' lack of skills. A possible source of the mismatch in perceptions is that employers and educators have different understandings of the types of skills valued in the labor market. Using economics and psychology literature to define four skills sets—socio-emotional, higher-order cognitive, basic cognitive, and technical—this paper reviews the literature that quantitatively measures employer skill demand, as reported in a preference survey. A sample of 27 studies reveals remarkable consistency across the world in the skills demanded by employers. While employers value all skill sets, there is a greater demand for socio-emotional skills and higher-order cognitive skills than for basic cognitive or technical skills. These results are robust across region, industry, occupation, and education level. Employers perceive that the greatest skills gaps are in socio-emotional and higher-order cognitive skills. These findings suggest the need to re-conceptualize the public sector's role in preparing children for a future labor market. Namely, technical training is not equivalent to job training; instead, a broad range of skills, many of which are best taught long before labor market entry, should be included in school curricula from the earliest ages. The skills most demanded by employers—higher-order cognitive skills and socio-emotional skills—are largely learned or refined in adolescence, arguing for a general education well into secondary school until these skills are formed. Finally, the public sector can provide programming and incentives to non-school actors, namely parents and employers, to encourage them to invest in the skills development process.
format	Journal Article
author	Cunningham, Wendy V. Villaseñor, Paula
author_facet	Cunningham, Wendy V. Villaseñor, Paula
author_sort	Cunningham, Wendy V.
title	Employer Voices, Employer Demands, and Implications for Public Skills Development Policy Connecting the Labor and Education Sectors
title_short	Employer Voices, Employer Demands, and Implications for Public Skills Development Policy Connecting the Labor and Education Sectors
title_full	Employer Voices, Employer Demands, and Implications for Public Skills Development Policy Connecting the Labor and Education Sectors
title_fullStr	Employer Voices, Employer Demands, and Implications for Public Skills Development Policy Connecting the Labor and Education Sectors
title_full_unstemmed	Employer Voices, Employer Demands, and Implications for Public Skills Development Policy Connecting the Labor and Education Sectors
title_sort	employer voices, employer demands, and implications for public skills development policy connecting the labor and education sectors
publisher	Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank
publishDate	2017
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27700
_version_	1764465928640135168

Employer Voices, Employer Demands, and Implications for Public Skills Development Policy Connecting the Labor and Education Sectors

Similar Items