mismatch in asia-pacific labour...
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2013/SOM3/HRDWG/FOR/014
Mismatch in Asia-Pacific Labour Markets
Submitted by: Australia
Roundtable Conference on Building Human Resource Development Partnerships for
Innovative Growth and Sustainable Development
Medan, Indonesia22-25 June 2013
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Mismatch in Asia‐Pacific labour markets
Nick Mowbray APEC Human Resources Development
Working Group Forum22 June 2013
What are skill mismatches?Skill mismatch is one of the main challenges faced by economies
‐skills.OECD
• Misalignment between the supply of and demand for workers with particular skills in an economy or region
• Can be temporary or long‐term
• Surpluses and shortages have social impacts and lead to lower productivity and lost economic output
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Types of skill mismatches
SKILLS GAPS AND SHORTAGES
HIGH SKILLED EQUILIBRIUM
LOW SKILLEDEQUILIBRIUM SKILLS SURPLUSD
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Supply Source: Jonathan Barr, OECD
Causes of skill mismatches• Economic development and changing technology altering employers’ needs
• Increased demand for skilled workers, reduced demand for unskilled labour, issues with skills obsolescence
• Barriers to matching workers with appropriate employment
• Population ageing to become significant in some economies
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Mismatch of training and jobs• Educational attainment is growing – but not keeping up with demand in some fields, economies and regions
• Some economies have elevated unemployment and skill shortages
• Concerns over relevance of some training – does it meet employers’ needs? Are the right graduates being produced?
• Growing graduate unemployment in some economies
Current shortages• Identified as a barrier to economic and trade growth by ABAC
• Becoming more prevalent in some economies – especially developing Asia and Japan
• Shortages include ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ skills
• Shortages vary between economies and regions, but key occupations are engineers, technicians, sales representatives, managers, accountants, IT staff and skilled trades workers.
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Why monitor skill mismatches?• An indicator of the tightness of the labour market – when tight, action to increase skilled workers can be appropriate
• Can indicate areas where training is not meeting employer needs
• Allows training and labour market programs to be targeted to specific skills or occupations in shortage
• A way of targeting migration programs (domestic and cross‐border)
Measuring mismatches• Australia, New Zealand and Singapore examples of economies that monitor occupations in shortage
• Monitoring mainly based on qualitative consultations, including with industry associations and individual employers
• Consistent monitoring helps to identify persistent shortages and whether actions to address shortages are working
• Many APEC economies do not appear to publish information on shortages
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An example from Singapore’s Strategic Skills‐in‐Demand list
Measuring cross‐economy shortages
• Important to provide employers and policymakers with information to guide decisions
• Complicated by differences in data availability and classifications
• Cross‐economy surveys are useful, but existing collections have limited scope – Manpower Group’s Talent Shortage Survey and World Bank Enterprise Surveys are examples
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ManpowerGroup surveys
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Australia Canada China ChineseTaipei
HongKong,China
Japan Mexico NewZealand
Peru Singapore UnitedStates
All regions
2007 2010 2013
Proportion of businesses who report having difficulty filling jobs, 2007‐2013
Source: Manpower Group, 2013 Talent Shortage Survey Research Results
World Bank Enterprise SurveysProportion of firms who report an inadequately educated workforce as a major constraint
Source: World Bank, Enterprise Surveys database
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
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Australia’s Labour Market Information Portal
Australian past and future employment growth
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British Columbia’s WorkBC portal – and WorkBC Tools
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New Zealand’s Education Counts website
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APEC Skills Mapping Project• An initial step in developing a regional picture of skills supply and demand
• Will publish information on past and future trends in employment as well as educational attainment and any current areas of shortages
• Project will suggest some future directions to improve the availability of information on these topics
Skills Mapping Project extensions?
• Annual data updates – additional economies can be included
• More detailed data, including new indicators
• Consistent updating of economy reports
• Further explore links with other organisations’ work programs – OECD Skills Strategy and LEED, Asian Development Bank, etc.
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Better monitoring of mismatches
• More economies could conduct and publish research on skill mismatches
• Relatively inexpensive, with strong potential returns
• Greater availability of data using multilateral classifications would be of benefit
• Scope for cross‐APEC cooperation in sharing best practice?
Questions•What are our shortages? Are they changing?
• How do we identify current and future jobs, and skill shortages?
• How can we better inform labour mobility and connect people with jobs?
• How can we use skills maps in practice?
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