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The Sectoral Employment Development Learning Project (SEDLP) was created in April 1997 to document and evaluate selected sectoral programs in quantitative and qualitative terms, and to disseminate the findings to interested policy makers and practitioners. A primary goal of the SEDLP was to address the question of whether sectoral approaches work. This publication examines data from a longitudinal survey of participants in six sectoral employment training programs, and documents what participants report one year after completing training, about their earnings, employment situation, and experiences with the programs. The findings of the project strongly indicate that only one year after completion of the training program, participation resulted in significant gains in the labour market, including higher annual earnings and earnings per hour, higher employment rates, increased hours of work, and improved job satisfaction and job quality. The contents are as follows: About this project; Executive summary; Outcomes for underemployed and unemployed (non-incumbent) workers; Personal earnings and income; Employment and experience in the job market; Job satisfaction and job quality; Participants’ training experience; Conclusion; Technical note: comparison of characteristics of Wave 2 respondents and Wave 1 respondents. Show less

This paper outlines some developments in employment and wage equity in the European Union (EU). The authors outline the connection between wage systems and wage trends and, particularly, the gender implications. They point to the European Commission policy on incorporating equity into all policies and activities and the apparent failure of wages moderation policies to address this. The authors assert that, because women are disproportionately represented at the lower end of the market in all countries, their collective bargaining strength is low in any non-regulated market. They conclude that, within the framework of gender-segregated labour markets, the move towards more decentralised systems in the EU will lead to greater disparity in pay and conditions for women. Show less

Foreign workers are a growing segment of the Canadian labour force. Approximately 613,200 foreign nationals in Canada held work permits in 2016 - more than twice the number of foreign workers a decade earlier (294,300 in 2005). Since the mid-1960s, agriculture has been one of the main recipients of foreign workers in Canada, and several programs are available to agriculture firms looking to fill their employment shortages by hiring foreign workers. This study documents annual trends in employment and earnings of foreign workers employed in agriculture and various subsectors of agriculture, as well as the characteristics of foreign workers in this industry. It also examines transitions to permanent residence for those who entered Canada as foreign workers and worked in agriculture. The main objective of the analysis is to provide a deeper understanding of the use of foreign worker programs in agriculture in Canada.

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The Skilled Migrant Category (SMC) is a points-based policy that allows people to gain permanent residence in New Zealand if they have the ability to contribute to New Zealand economically and socially. More migrants are approved for residence in New Zealand under the SMC than any other immigration category, with approvals making up in excess of half of all people approved for residence. The research on which this report is based examined how the employability and capacity-building factors that are used to select among SMC applicants are related to the wages earned by SMC migrants three years after taking up residence. The report goes on to draw implications and make recommendations for SMC policy.

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The rise of the platform economy during the last decade is one of the main disrupting forces for European labour markets. While standard employment remains the norm, platforms are expanding their reach and diversifying into novel business models. In doing so, they are also attracting an increasing number of women. This policy brief investigates why women are joining the platform economy and how the motivations to perform work on platforms differ between genders. It shows that while women join platforms to gain an additional income and because it allows them the flexibility to combine work with household chores or family commitments, men are driven by the opportunities provided by platforms to work globally and to expand their client base. At the same time, findings suggest that online platforms seem to provide women with a link to the labour market that can potentially prevent their withdrawal from the labour force during different life stages. These findings suggest that policy action should focus on extending working hours regulations and work-life balance measures to all platform workers, irrespective of employment status, and promote equal sharing of care responsibilities between women and men.

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Graduates from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are usually found to have higher wages and a lower risk of overqualification. However, it is unclear whether the effect of STEM subjects on overqualification and wages [can be interpreted] in a causal way, since individuals choosing these subjects might differ systematically in unobserved characteristics, such as ability. Using data on German male graduates [the authors] show that unobserved heterogeneity indeed matters for differences in the risk of overqualification and wages when STEM graduates are compared to the business and law group, while it plays only a minor role for the difference between STEM graduates and the social sciences and humanities group.

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Using data from Wave 1 of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia [HILDA] survey, 2001, in this paper [the author] investigates the value of the maternity leave provisions available to Australian women. The theory of compensating wage differentials informs the model used to estimate the shadow price of eligibility for both paid and unpaid maternity leave benefits. The results suggest a negative wage differential may exist in Australia such that employed women eligible for maternity leave receive a lower rate of pay than those ineligible, all other things being equal. The policy implications of the results are discussed.

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There is now significant interest in how essential skills – those highly transferable skills required for practically any job – can contribute to social mobility, productivity and prepare the workforce for automation. Essential skills are distinct from basic skills (literacy, numeracy and digital skills) and technical skills (specific to a particular sector or role, sometimes drawing off a particular body of knowledge). At the same time, there is growing momentum for taking a robust and consistent approach to measuring and building these skills. Despite valuable pieces of isolated research [see report in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 144.280], the authors note that to date there has been no clear picture of the levels of these skills across the UK and how they impact life outcomes. The purpose of this research is to take the first step in filling that gap by providing a view of essential skill levels in the UK and how they relate to important outcomes like wellbeing, employment and income. By repeating this research annually, the goal is to build a baseline for essential skill levels as well as a nuanced picture of the factors both impacting and impacted by them.

This paper sets out to answer the following questions: What is the relationship between essential skills and life outcomes such as employment and wellbeing? To what extent do the UK public believe essential skills are important for their lives? How are essential skills and the opportunities to build them distributed across our society? What is the relationship between opportunities to build skills, skill levels and other outcomes? The research is the first of its kind to use the Skills Builder Universal Framework for Essential Skills.

This research shows that essential skills are correlated with life outcomes, from increased wellbeing and higher earnings to lower probability of being out of work or education. However, essential skills - and the opportunities to build them - are not distributed equitably in the UK. It is therefore no surprise that the UK public both highly values these skills and wants more opportunities to build them. Despite this, opportunities to build essential skills are limited. As well as a 'skills gap', this paper shows there is in effect a 'skills trap'. Disadvantage and a lack of early opportunity to build essential skills leads to a lack of value placed on them, limited future opportunities, lower skill score, lower income and lower life satisfaction. The paper further validates findings from decades of work on the ground that high-quality opportunities to build essential skills improve individuals' skill levels. To both bridge the gap and escape the trap, the UK needs to scale the volume of high quality opportunities to build essential skills in education, through impact interventions and in employment.

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In this paper we analyze the impact of foreign-born workers in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) on employment and wages in Canadian geographical areas during the period 1991-2006. Canadian policies select immigrants with a strong emphasis on high educational attainment. Moreover the foreign-born constitute a third of the Canadian population making Canada a very good case to analyze the effect of foreign-STEM workers on the local economy. We use the dispersion of immigrants by nationality across 17 geographical areas in 1981 to predict the supply-driven increase in foreign scientists and engineers during the period 1991-2006. Then we analyze their impact on the employment and wages of college and non-college educated Canadian-born (native) workers. We find significant positive effects on the wages and (to a lesser extent) employment of college educated natives. We also find a smaller positive effect on the wages and employment of native workers with very low levels of education (i.e. those with no high school degree). This implies a positive productivity effect of foreign-STEM workers in Canada, and also a college bias in their contribution to productivity growth. Compared to the effect of foreign scientists and engineers in US cities, the Canadian results show similar effects on wages of college educated and at least partial evidence of a positive diffusion of the effect to non-college educated, which was not present in the US.

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A vast body of research finds an association between missteps taken during the teen years (such as motherhood or dropping out of high school) and poor economic and educational outcomes. However, youth who take major missteps as teens often have subsequent success in school or the labour market. This paper attempts to draw lessons from youth who appear headed for a poor start in life, yet manage to have a positive economic or educational outcome by their early 20s. Using National Educational Longitudinal Survey (NELS), we provide one of the first longitudinal analyses of well-being for teen mothers and high school dropouts that includes a nationally-representative population of Hispanic and Asian youth. In general, the predictors of positive outcomes are similar for those with high probabilities of poor starts as for the general population. A few high-school-age behaviours and community measures have additional associations with positive outcomes for likely poor starters. However, these correlates do not appear for all groups of likely poor starters, and they are not always in the expected direction.

Published abstract reprinted from ‘Economics of education review’, copyright 2007, with permission from Elsevier. Show less