Whether enough highly qualified STEM workers are being educated and trained in the UK is an important question. The answer has implications not only for educators, employers and policymakers but also for individuals who are currently engaged in, or are considering entering, education or training in this area. Set against a policy backdrop that…

Employers are increasingly selecting and developing employees based on skills rather than qualifications. Governments now have a growing focus on skilling, reskilling and upskilling the workforce through skills-based development rather than qualifications as a way of improving productivity. Both these changes are leading to a much stronger…

Increased public investment in PhD education to drive innovation has led to a recent rapid growth in the number of PhD graduates. Academic labour markets have not developed at the same pace. An ever-larger share of the graduates is finding employment in industry. The transition from academia to industry is not always easy. The present study aims…

Concerns over the supply of highly-skilled (HS) science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) workers are well established and have been a feature of policy discourse in the UK for more than 50 years. Since the 2016 referendum on leaving the European Union, these concerns have been exacerbated by uncertainty about the movement of labour…

A fundamental shift is taking place in the way we think about the future of work and its relationship to education, training and the labour market. Until recently, expanding higher education was widely believed to result in higher earnings, reflecting an insatiable demand for knowledge workers. In the United Kingdom, this race to higher education…

EU policy makers are facing increased urgency to integrate and energise the professional labour market, especially in the context of the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, the push towards the green and digital transitions and the defence of the Single Market following Brexit. This latest policy briefing on the recognition of professionals looks at…

This report identifies effective strategies to tackle skills imbalances, based on five country-specific policy notes for France, Italy, Spain, South Africa and the United Kingdom. It provides a comparative assessment of practices and policies in the following areas: the collection and use of information on skill needs to foster a better alignment…

This study, commissioned by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), is designed to review current evidence on the most effective ways in which employers can support schools to improve pupil educational and economic outcomes. It is a study in three parts. It aims, first, to conceptualise employer engagement in education as a strategic tool,…

This report provides an comprehensive analysis of the way recession is impacting upon graduate outcomes. Data used in this report reflects the current level of applications to higher education (HE) for 2010 entry, but, due to data collection timing differences, the employment and training destinations of the graduating cohorts of 2005/06-2008/09.…

The main thesis of this paper is that measured unemployment bears a different relationship to real excess labor supply in the 1970s than it did in the 1960s. This thesis is used to explain the increase in measured unemployment in the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. (Author/EB)

This paper reports on the outcomes of a replication study of a survey of British employers that requested information on the qualifications sought when recruiting employees and on subsequent training and development. While the British survey was interested in the uptake and use of the British National Vocational Qualifications, the study reported…

A national survey of registered nurses and analysis of official statistics provided an overview of the dimensions and dynamics of the labor market for nurses in the United Kingdom. Findings indicated the following: enrollment in preregistration nurse training courses decreased by 27 percent over the 1990s; initial entries to the UK Central Council…

This collection includes five papers assessing current and projected developments in the field of robotics and the implications of these developments for vocational-technical education. The first paper, "New Applications for Industrial Robots--Perspectives for the Next Five Years" (M. Illi) compares advances in robotics in Japan and the…

In this paper, unemployment trends in aggregate, by faculty and by subject are examined, using data from the annual First Destination Return, first compiled for the 1961-62 university graduates, and the 1970 and 1980 graduate cohort surveys. Differences related to gender and type of institution of study are identified. (Author/MLW)

The relationship between higher education and the world of work is examined in terms of the changing structures of higher education institutions and the effect of the relationship on curricula. An international perspective is provided on the changing nature of employment and the labor market; the increasing diversification of higher education…