When the COVID-19 pandemic plunged the economy back into recession in early 2020, it laid bare a fragile and profoundly inequitable labor market. The economic expansion that reigned from 2009 through 2019 brought historically low unemployment and inflation but failed to reduce income inequality or arrest the decline in the number of high-quality,…

The COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented economic and policy challenges to the United States and other countries. Navigating out of the pandemic slowdown is another novel experience, which makes it more difficult to answer the question addressed each year in the "State of Working Pennsylvania": How is the Pennsylvania economy…

While the fields of work-integrated learning (WIL) and career development share common goals, WIL literature tends to focus on student employability more than students' ability to manage their careers. The Leading Edge program at a Canadian institution, the University of Victoria, brings together these two disciplines as it draws from theory and…

This paper discusses the developments in the renewable energy sector and their impact on jobs and training. It compiles and makes an analysis of how the available technologies in the market will further develop corresponding with global trends in the energy efficiency and renewable energy sectors, and the corresponding capacities that are needed…

This analysis and guidelines aim to establish the key issues and considerations in describing the new or modified digital and professional skills TVET teachers require for blended delivery. The accompanying "Digital and Professional Teacher Competency Standards for Blended TVET" presents the draft competency standards. [For the…

This article applies Paul Gomberg's theory of contributive justice to the problematic of working-class graduates' access to skilled and meaningful work in the UK. I begin by outlining Gomberg's argument for the importance of quality work as a key social good. I then draw upon a range of sociologically-informed literature to offer a two-fold…

Tom Wilson, the chair of the executive committee of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce published an op-ed titled "Save Capitalism by Paying People More." Wilson acknowledges in blunt terms that ordinary working Americans are not flourishing economically. This year's annual "The State of Working Pennsylvania" documents the accuracy of…

This is the first report of a Keystone Research Center project on the "Future of Work." The aim is to identify public policies that could help ensure that the application and diffusion of artificial intelligence (AI) over the next several decades fosters an economy in which Americans generally thrive. The project is motivated, in part,…

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…

Adult migrants in all OECD countries are a diverse group, with different profiles and levels of education. Even if they hold tertiary degrees, they are more likely to have poorer labour market outcomes, including lower earnings. Participation in the labour market is more difficult for foreign-born adults who arrived at a later age and acquired…

The "Education in Brazil: An International Perspective" report was developed drawing on internationally comparative data on education in Brazil, in particular the extensive range of data collected by the OECD through its surveys. The experiences of other countries and how they have tackled challenges similar to those now faced by Brazil,…

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently projected record-breaking growth in 2021, but it is premature to celebrate this rosy macroeconomic picture. In the same document, the CBO also made an alarming prediction: The U.S. labor market will not fully recover until 2024. Recent U.S. jobs reports reveal the depth of the pandemic-created…

The main purpose of this article is to analyse to what degree master's degree education in Norway enhances employability through enhancing or signalling generic competence, or through enhancing specialised competence. Using multiple correspondence analysis on the links between educational group, economic activity and sector, educational groups…

This paper explores the relationship between English language skills and earnings among workers in urban China using micro-data from the 2015 China General Social Survey. Using OLS and 2SLS regressions, we find that there are positive economic returns to English language skills (both listening and speaking) among workers in urban China. We also…

Neoliberal capitalism has faced severe criticism both in principle and in practice since the Lehman Shock in 2008. The purpose of the paper is to identify and explain how the current mode of neoliberal capitalism redefines and reshapes the societal roles of the university sector in neoliberal capitalist societies, notably the UK and the US in the…