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One of the main challenges in modern labour markets is to improve the mobility and employability of workers among workplaces, jobs and roles. This paper explores the factors that might influence people's beliefs about and attitudes towards the mechanisms for improving employability through training. We develop a research model and test it in Israel using surveys that were distributed at two points in time – before and during an acute crisis in the labour market – the Covid-19 pandemic. Perceptions about personal mobility and employability and prior educational experience play a major role in explaining citizens' attitudes towards training. Beliefs about the effectiveness of government training providers as well as employment security are relatively marginal in explaining the demand for training. Policy implications follow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twelve qualitative case studies in German and Canadian hospitals and IT companies were used in this mixed-methods study analysing the labour market outcomes of immigrants. The reported case studies investigate the immigrants' recognition, integration process and the usability of foreign qualifications, skills and work experiences in the labour market. Furthermore, the strategies and rationales of employers and employees within the recruiting process are analysed. Here, the focus lies on the transferability and obstacles of cultural and social capital across country borders as well as the relevant framework conditions. This paper refers to Bourdieu's approach towards different types of capital as well as the rational choice theory. The results demonstrate that immigrants in both countries face more obstacles accessing the labour market within the health sector than within the IT sector. The context of the recruiting situation strongly affects the strategies and behaviour of the employers or the recruiters. Within these sector- and country-specific confines, individual factors determine the immigrants' labour market success. Furthermore, the sector and the country affect the relevance of each individual factor in the recruiting process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learner agency, often understood in terms of self-direction and negotiated engagement, is considered important in technical and vocational education and training (TVET). Yet nurturing and supporting agency is resource-intensive and difficult. In this paper, we consider learner agency for online TVET—a setting where content delivery models can be experienced as stultifying. We document the design and evaluation of specific task designs using the method and principle of double-stimulation, where prompts help participants to reconceptualise problematic situations and break out of conflicting motives. We draw on data from a research-intervention with adult learners undertaking a facilities management diploma online, while working. We explore how, across nine online workshops, task designs engendered transformative agency: the ability to collaboratively diverge from instructional intent, question dilemmatic conditions, and propose and enact change. We claim (1) that specific double-stimulation tasks encouraged participants to engage in understanding institutional practice, exposing conflict, and enacting change; (2) that participants came to view their own problematic conditions as stimuli for resistance, criticism, and development; and (3) that online resources were crucial for highlighting evidence of failure and learners' potential roles in change. Our findings are of importance to help learners set and evaluate their own learning agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares within-country programmes of initial vocational education and training (IVET) in Austria, the Czech Republic and Germany and their outcomes. Specifically, it aims to analyse and compare the labour market success of graduates of different tracks at the ISCED 3 level in both early and later stages of their careers. The comparison is based on the analysis of PIAAC 2013 OECD study data. A composite multidimensional indicator was constructed to measure labour market success and subsequently used as a dependent variable in regression models. The results indicate that in the systems with dual IVET at the ISCED 3 level (Germany and Austria), graduates are indeed more successful at the labour market than their counterparts with other ISCED 3 tracks. However, their advantage diminishes in later stages of the career. Additionally, in Austria, the success of dual education young graduates is mediated by individual characteristics. In the system with only school-based IVET (the Czech Republic), this track does not guarantee substantively higher labour market success for young graduates compared to other ISCED 3 tracks and also to those with lower education. Czech apprentices in the later stages of career succeed even less than those with below ISCED 3 education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether there is or should be a relation between 'occupation' and 'qualification' is a contested issue in vocational education and training (VET). The privileged shelter of structured occupational labour markets stands pitted against the near impossibility of access by those at the margins of employment opportunities. This paper investigates the relation between occupation and qualification, conceptually and empirically. The key finding is that the relation manifests in labour-market specific ways in relation to two types of occupational qualification. One qualification type references 'whole' occupations and the other dilutes occupation into an ideology of occupationalism, while drawing on the discursive resources of 'occupation' to mask the segmentalist logic of 'unitised' or part-qualifications. For those desperately seeking to become employable, 'occupation' may well have greater appeal than 'competence' as labour market currency but it is the nature of the qualification to which 'occupation' is linked that ultimately determines its labour market efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vocational education and training (VET) is linked to many social and economic goals. Yet despite the high policy ambitions, it often remains a sector with a low(er) social standing. This paper is based on empirical data collected through interviews and focus groups with over 250 young women and men aged 16–18 in 34 VET schools in Romania. It aims to gain a better understanding of their perceived reasons for being in VET and seeks to find out the extent to which VET involved an element of choice. The paper explores a large array of circumstances that bring young people into VET, which are not limited to the need to acquire skills. These issues include localism, family obligations and the priorities of powerful 'others': schools, employers, etc. It argues that, despite young people actively searching for elements of choice, VET in Romania is more a story of capability deprivation. This paper questions a policy discourse that prioritises the need for skills at the expense of engaging meaningfully with young people's social worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brazil faces complex challenges regarding the need to pursue economic growth coupled with the inclusion of diverse segments of society, including people with disability. This paper seeks to highlight historical aspects about the insertion of people with disability in the Brazilian labour market, to secure the need for public policies to guarantee the rights of persons with disability, to reveal some steps the country has taken in this direction, especially in the intersection between vocational training initiatives, mainly in apprenticeship programmes, and the labour market. The paper also highlights some contradictions and obstacles in this path as well some measures adopted for a possible overcoming and development in the inclusion of people with disability in the labour market through vocational education. Adopting bibliographical research regarding people with disability and apprenticeship programmes, we concluded VET programmes for this group helps everyone involved, promoting diversity among the labour market and improving organisational culture of companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An apprenticeship levy was introduced in England in 2017 to help the government meet its target of 3 million apprenticeships between 2015 and 2020. Training levies have been, until recently, something of an anathema in public policy circles in England with most having been abolished by the mid-1980s as the government moved towards creating a flexible, de-regulated labour market. So why would an apprenticeship levy now produce better results? In this paper, we analyse in-depth employer interviews carried out in 2016 to identify possible impacts of the levy on businesses' approaches to apprenticeships. We consider whether, ex ante, the levy was expected to result in: more apprentices being trained; reconfiguration of existing training structures into apprenticeships; employers 'gaming' the system, with levy funds being used but not producing real gains in training; or, employers writing off the levy. These findings are presented alongside data on apprenticeship starts since the levy's introduction. We discuss the dramatic fall in apprenticeship starts relative to pre-levy numbers. Given the latest figures and our ex ante study of employers, it appears as though even such wide-sweeping change to the programme may do little to overcome longstanding, low levels of employer demand for apprenticeships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyse the effects of workers' self-rated attitudinal skills and their performance on vocational skills tests on their wage. The survey was conducted with garment workers who had experience of less than three years in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The constituting elements of attitudinal skills were examined using the questionnaire for the workers. Meanwhile, a vocational skills test was conducted with the same population and graded by the employers and the vocational schools' teachers. We found that the attitudinal skills, i.e. the desire to maintain a clean and tidy workplace and to follow the rules, are associated with higher earnings. Vocational skills, which are more likely to be rewarded by higher salaries, include sewing and patternmaking. We also found that the interaction between patternmaking, sewing, and attitudinal skills yielded higher returns. Interestingly, our results show that at higher levels of attitudinal skills, workers with high sewing skills, and high patternmaking skills earned a higher wage. Our results are robust to alternative measures of attitudinal skills that correct for reference bias and different specifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights troubling patterns within the Australian School-based Apprenticeships and Traineeships (SBATs) by analysing statistical data of 21,000 of 15–19 year old apprenticeship/traineeship learners engaged in Vocational Education and Training in School (VETiS). It confirms the alignment of social groups to certain qualification fields and levels and provides a compelling picture of the learner profile of SBAT including the type of occupations and qualifications being undertaken at school level. In a complex policy environment, where VET in Schools has been assigned the important task of preparing ‘workforce job-ready’ students for the ‘high skill and high earning roles our economy demands’, we argue that the SBAT pathway is not yet adequate to meet these high expectations. It is not an effective apprenticeship pathway as it potentially ‘locks-in’ already disadvantaged young people to precarious pathways, and reinforces the nature of an already highly gender-segregated Australian labour market. The paper helps to focus attention on endemic weaknesses in the Australian VET system that serve to entrench disadvantage in Australian society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the United States, high school career and technical education (CTE) is the primary source of vocational training at the secondary level, and is similar in goal if not form to vocational education and training (VET) worldwide. CTE has evolved in the past decade to place greater emphasis on programmes in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), mirroring parallel changes in the economy. Little is known, however, about how the rise of STEM CTE programmes have affected participation for students of different backgrounds, and how changes in participation interact with changes in programme offerings. In this paper, we use administrative data from the state of Massachusetts to first document the expansion of CTE and STEM CTE programmes over a decade. We then estimate what student-level factors are associated with participation, including gender, race, socioeconomic status, first language, and disability. We identify important variation in programme participation, particularly among groups historically overrepresented in CTE, and underrepresented in STEM. Leveraging Massachusetts as a case study, we discuss implications for the STEM pipeline and other state and local contexts. Similarly, as VET programmes across many nations consider who has access to what programmes, lessons from Massachusetts may inform policies to ensure equitable access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canadian society is characterised by a plurality of immigrants and Canadian migration policy and corresponding recognition approaches are strongly geared to economic criteria, qualifications and skills. This paper addresses the question how immigrants who have acquired their highest qualification outside Canada are able to use their foreign qualifications and skills in their current job. The analyses are conducted to verify the assumptions of human capital theory as well as the lack of transferability of human capital across country borders. To answer these questions a labour market success index is developed, which is used as a dependent variable in regression models. The results show that traditional operationalisations of human capital (years of education, years of work experience and skills) have a positive effect on individual labour market success. At the same time, being born abroad and having acquired one's highest qualification abroad in comparison to Canada, especially in a Non-Western country, has negative effects on the overall labour market success of an individual. Detailed comparisons regarding different indicators of labour market success also prove these comparatively negative effects. The results demonstrate the limited explanatory power of human capital theory and the necessity to complement it with Bourdieu's concepts of social and cultural capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sweden is internationally commended for a high degree of gender equality, but many divisions in Swedish society, including the labour market, disadvantage women. This paper addresses gendered divisions of preparation for civic participation in the vocational upper secondary national curricula, which may participate in reproduction of the pattern. In a comparative analysis of the curriculum guidelines for different vocational upper secondary programmes, we focus on the inclusion of important knowledge for empowerment and how knowledge is contextualised in terms of valued labour positions. We deploy Bernstein’s concepts of horizontal and vertical discourse and Connell’s concepts of production, consumption and gendered accumulation. A general finding is that vertical discourse is contextualised towards discourses of consumption in girl-dominated programmes and towards discourses of production in boy-dominated programmes. Boy-dominated programmes include more knowledge that can be clearly classified in recognised disciplines or fields, whereas girl-dominated programmes include courses of undefined knowledge, such as creativity and entrepreneurship. We conclude that the vocational curricula reinforce rather than challenge existing gender structures in the labour market and wider society. In a historical perspective, it can be concluded that Swedish vocational education policy has a continuum of ‘gender-blindness', and thus confirming with wider norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Netherlands has a binary higher education system in which academic education and higher professional education at EQF levels 5–8 co-exist. There is also secondary vocational education at EQF levels 1 up to 4. In this paper, I analyse policy documents resulting from the Bologna Process and argue that under neo-liberal conditions, higher professional education brings opportunities for both students and employers, but also creates a socio-economic tension in terms of employability. The gap between higher professional education and secondary vocational education adds to the formation of a labour market in which higher professional education graduates are prepared to an international labour market but employability pressure is being put on lower skilled employees, creating unequal employability opportunities for vocational education graduates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National Qualifications Frameworks (NQFs) are intended to promote stronger linkages between education institutions and the labour market. This paper examines how industrial relations institutions mediate the relationship between formal qualifications, job classifications and pay outcomes in Australian manufacturing. In Australia a tribunal sets job classifications and pay grades through industry-based awards; collective agreements that displace the award can be negotiated, primarily on an enterprise by enterprise basis. In a representative sample of 100 collective agreements in the manufacturing industry, we find linkages in collective agreements are less common, weaker and refer to a narrower range of qualifications than the comparable awards. In fact, a third of enterprise-level collective agreements contain no reference at all to an NQF qualification. These findings suggest that diffusion of NQFs in the labour market cannot be taken for granted and challenge prescriptions that qualifications should be defined around narrow descriptions of competence to reflect employer preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Reform of vocational education and training policy (VET) in New Zealand has been underpinned by the view that VET can contribute more to equal opportunity by creating more meaningful and rewarding pathways into employment, and by neutralising the influence of background factors on achievement. While the reforms have succeeded in some respects, research shows that participation in VET remains structured by background factors including ethnicity, socio-economic status and gender. This primarily theoretical paper contributes further to the debate by assessing the relationship between ethnicity, participation and achievement in VET, and the labour market. To advance this argument, the research draws upon field theory, which highlights the importance of differences in the rules of the competition for advancement through education across time and space in mediating the outcomes of VET. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many advanced market democracies pursue social justice by bundling together a range of programmes represented as active social policy. Northern European exemplars sanction employment as an economic and social citizen’s civic obligation, promote lifelong learning and place welfare payments as a last resort. In the United States, market-based post-school education financed by guaranteed student loans was developed as a policy alternative. Australian politicians have embraced elements of both, resulting in a massive reduction in public delivery of vocational education and training in favour of multimillion dollar, stock exchange-listed private providers. The resultant amalgam of active labour market policy and free market principles positions standard setting as a regulatory mechanism and in support of cross-jurisdictional market operations. This paper explores the interaction between active policy and demands of the market while speaking to wider issues that arise when a government first creates and then intervenes in markets. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In Germany, social background has a strong influence on school performance in the general educational system. Children from lower social classes have fewer opportunities to gain higher school leaving certificates. In this paper, we ask the question if social selectivity is also present in the German system of vocational education and training. Based on the data-set of the German Transition Study of the Federal Institute of Vocational Education and Training, we analyse the transition from school to vocational education and training, including also the transition to higher education. We show that the successful placement in full vocational qualification programmes leading to a recognised occupation depends strongly on the general school-leaving certificate. As regards the direct influence of social background, there is some evidence for fewer chances for young people from lower social classes but only for non-holders of a higher education entrance qualification (HEEQ). Young people from lower social classes holding a HEEQ more often choose initial vocational training instead of a higher education degree. Our results show that the strong social selectivity of the German general educational system is perpetuated in the German system of vocational education and training and determines long-run career perspectives. Therefore, a policy for reduction of social selectivity in Germany has to target the teaching in the schools of general education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many countries are adopting market-based training systems to address industry skills needs. This paper examines the marketisation of Australia’s training system and the implications for training provision and outcomes in the Transport and Logistics industry. Drawing on qualitative interviews from industry employers and training providers, we examine the social structuring of the training market with reference to employer perceptions, behaviour and implications for the training system and outcomes. We conclude that the training market is not neutral but one shaped by major employers. Employers becoming enterprise training providers and training to their specific needs are identified as entrenching employer control over the training system with the unintended consequences of potentially restricting broader worker employability, marginalising the interests of smaller employers and contributing to unfavourable labour market outcomes. Enhanced social partnership is presented as a way to address these concerns and mitigate the negative consequences of training marketisation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]