To determine the repercussions of scientific and technological progress on the employment of women and their conditions of work, the Women's Bureau used available statistical data from 1958-68 to study: (1) Employment and Unemployment, (2) Vocational Guidance and Training, (3) Training and Retraining of Older Women, (4) Remuneration, (5) Hours of…

Recommendations favoring generic academic rather than occupationally specific skills are based on false premises. Research evidence contradicts the following assertions: (1) academic skills are good substitutes for occupational skills; (2) skill obsolescence reduces the payoff to vocational training; and (3) rising job turnover reduces the payoff…

The way resources are deployed to educate Americans will affect, as never before, productivity, the economy, and the quality of life. To maintain the present standard of living, Americans will be dependent on a continuous infusion of scientific breakthroughs and productivity-enhancing technology. Periodic upgrading of skills will be a necessity…

To provide a common frame of reference, the Michigan Employability Skills Task Force created a working construct of employability skill categories. The draft framework extended beyond academic competence to include interpersonal, group, and adaptability skills. After task force discussions, the initial five skill categories were compressed into…

Macomb Community College (MCC) in Warren, Michigan, has a commitment to support business and industrial development, consequent employee retraining, and program design. In addition to helping workers in their retraining and/or relocation, the college provides systematic support in the development of basic skills. Occupational programs have tended…

The Professional, Industrial, and Commercial Updating Programme (PICKUP) of the United Kingdom is aimed at improving the performance of British industry through the colleges. In Wales, PICKUP is part of the Welsh Office Education Department. Various factors have encouraged educational institutions to take on PICKUP work: the Education Reform Act…

The research literature on the preparation of young people for work proves that policy recommendations are based on two false premises--academic skills are good substitutes for occupation-specific skills and increases in job turnover and skill obsolescence rates have caused a decline in the return to occupation-specific training by schools.…

In the Federal Republic of Germany, the individual states have exclusive responsibility for publicly run education, which includes vocational schools. Responsibility for vocational training on the job rests exclusively with the federal government. The roots of vocational training are in medieval apprenticeship training and religious and industrial…

During the next two decades, vocational education will face a major challenge to keep up to date with technology. National crises usually lead to new technologies. The United States today faces major problems in the areas of energy, productivity, and foreign trade. Solutions to these problems will generate new knowledge and technology that will…

The eight articles in this theme issue of CEDEFOP's twice-yearly multi-lingual bulletin focus on continuing education to maintain and upgrade the workforce. "Force--The Community's Action Programme for the Continuing Training in the 1990s" describes the objectives of this new program to improve the skill levels of the European…

Impacts from the major high technological changes now underway cut across all industrial sectors and most occupational clusters. Technological innovation can increase or decrease the total number of types of jobs. Decline in employment may be offset, however, by new applications and capabilities of goods and services or by employment shifts. While…

This publication discusses reforms in lifelong learning undertaken in the 11 states represented on the National Governors' Association Action Team on Lifelong Learning. It is a catalog of initiatives to create greater opportunities for youth and adults to obtain skills needed to compete effectively in a global economy. The reforms discussed in…