Employment guidance theory and praxis promote long-term career development and access to decent work and sustainable jobs, yet the focus of public employment services in recent times has been influenced by policy matters of activation, conditionality and rapid job placement. While effective for some, it has been less effective for workers exposed…

Purpose: The paper seeks to disclose the features and implications of the neoliberal VET and employment policy agendas for the social and institutional VET ecosystems and the integration of at-risk youth in the labour market in the Baltic countries. Design/methodology/approach: The research is based on the comparative policy analysis approach with…

This paper provides an overview of government policy on young people who are Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET) across the four UK nations. The paper argues that policy in England on this topic is less well-developed and coherent than in the other UK nations, and that the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic will serve to amplify the…

In the past two decades Turkey has experienced a rapid increase in higher education student enrollment. This sharp increase in access to higher education has satisfied a strong social demand for university education but it has led to a growing surplus of university graduates who cannot find adequate jobs. As a result Turkey has entered an…

In today's economy, more than 80 percent of jobs require workers to have education or training beyond the high school level--making skills more important than ever before. However, this does not mean that employers are exclusively recruiting individuals with a four-year degree. In fact, since over half of all jobs today can be classified as…

For the last decade, the Western Balkan countries have sought to modernise their vocational education and training (VET) systems, adapting them to the needs of their emerging market economies. Within the framework of the EU accession process, the policy agenda for VET policies has been strongly influenced by a range of international and domestic…

Young people around the world are struggling to enter the labour market. In some OECD countries, one in four 16-29 year-olds is neither employed nor in education or training. The OECD Skills Outlook 2015 shows how improving the employability of youth requires a comprehensive approach. While education, social, and labour market policies have key…

Drawing on an ethnography in regional employment offices in a French-German canton in Switzerland, it is the aim of this article to articulate the complexities involved in the practices revolving around and geared towards the role of language competences in the process of professional reintegration, particularly so with regards to migrants who…

The series Investing in Youth builds on the expertise of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on youth employment, social support and skills. It covers both OECD countries and countries in the process of accession to the OECD, as well as some emerging economies. The present report on Lithuania is the fourth of a new…

The Swedish government recently launched a number of short-term initiatives within the framework of formal adult education. These initiatives are: vocational adult education, education for commercial drivers and apprenticeship education for adults. The new initiatives can be seen as education for the short-term needs of the world of work and we…

Strategies of "employability" and "activation" are increasingly favoured in the European Union policy context. These strategies are aimed at fostering inclusion by stressing the responsibility of the individual to participate in education and employment. Similar tendencies can be observed in the United Kingdom (UK) over the…

In this paper we will briefly review recent trends in employment outcomes for disadvantaged youth, focusing specifically on those who have become "disconnected" from school and the labor market, and why these trends have occurred. We then review a range of policy prescriptions that might improve those outcomes. These policies include: 1)…

In this article we use comparative micro data for 15 European countries covering the period 1992-2007 to study the impact of labor market reforms on the skill-related individual risk of holding a temporary contract and the risk of being unemployed. Our results indicate no general increase in either of these skill gaps. Using two-step multilevel…

The Great Recession left a crater in the labor market that has been devastating for unemployed Americans of all ages. After more than two years of unemployment at well over 8%, there is a hole of more than 11 million jobs, with average spells of unemployment lasting nearly nine months. The weak labor market has been particularly tough on young…

Employability skills are central to gaining and keeping employment (e.g. whether paid or unpaid, as an employee or self employed) as well as career progression. The lack of such skills is regularly referred to as one reason for the United Kingdom's often cited long tail of underachievement. Employability skills are at the forefront of government…