This paper looks at the importance of mechanisms that give formal recognition to vocational skills acquired through work-based learning and how such mechanisms might be developed. It describes how skill recognition can benefit individuals, employers and society as a whole, and identifies in which contexts skill recognition has the highest…

This paper reports that between 2008 and 2009, unemployment rates across OECD countries increased among people at all educational levels, but rose to especially troubling heights among people without an upper secondary education. In 2009, the average employment rate across OECD countries was much higher for individuals with a tertiary (i.e.…

In 2001 the Finnish government decided that the state sector should develop a new salary system that would take more fully into account the actual outcomes and demands of particular posts. Subsequently, in June 2006, an agreement on a new salary system for the Finnish university sector was reached between the negotiating parties, the employers and…

This working paper assesses the ease of immigrants' integration in OECD labour markets by estimating how an immigration background influences the probability of being active or employed and the expected hourly earnings, for given individual characteristics. Applying the same methodology to comparable data across twelve OECD countries, immigrants…

A recent compilation of educational indicators from 20 industrialized countries in North America, the Pacific, Europe, and Scandinavia shows rates and trends in college enrollment and graduation, education-related earning power for men and women, and public spending on education. Educational attainment rates are charted for the 20 nations. (MSE)