MONASH UNIVERSITY - ACER CENTRE FOR THE ECONOMICS OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

Information on future jobs and skills Paper prepared for TAFE frontiers Chandra Shah, John Fischer and Gerald Burke

August 2001

Contact: Chandra Shah CEET, Faculty of Education, PO Box 6, Monash University, Victoria 3800. Tel 03 9905 2787 Fax 03 9905 9184 [email protected] www.education.monash.edu.au/centres/ce

Guide to Future Jobs and Skills – TAFE Frontiers

Contents Summary

ii

Introduction Changing industry, occupation and skill

1 1

Nature of jobs and skills Jobs Defining skills Measuring skills ASCO occupational classification as a measure

3 3 3 4 5

Factors affecting the demand for training – the importance of job and skill information

7

Tracking trends in jobs and skills Statistical methods Qualitative methods

9 9 10

Criteria for assessing information

11

Where to find information on future jobs and skills Media reports Career advice and current information on occupations ETTE Planning Guide Using students and staff as a source of information Other sources of information

12 12 12 13 14 15

Concluding comment

16

References

17

Some useful web sites

19

Attachment A Concepts and measurement of skill Concepts of skill What determines skill? Generic and occupation specific skills Approaches to analysing skills

20 20 20 21 22

Attachment B Employment by major occupational groupings

24

Attachment C Alternative occupational groupings

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Guide to Future Jobs and Skills – TAFE Frontiers

Summary Planning for the future is an important function of managers. Such planning include making decisions on resource allocation. The cost of taking the wrong decision can be quite high. Therefore decisions taken have to be informed and supported with good analyses of the available data. This aim of this guide is to assist TAFE managers look for the type of information about future jobs, and the skills and knowledge required in them, and the sources for such information. A more complete understanding of how the labour market and changing skill requirements may affect resource allocation and strategy development in TAFE provision require information on: • the labour market at the national, state and regional level; and • the changing skill requirements in jobs. A proper assessment of the information on future jobs and skills requires some understanding of the nature of jobs and skills, problems associated with their measurement and the limitations of the data on them. These are discussed at the beginning of the guide. The guide discusses and points to a number of sources where the two types of information can be obtained. It also suggests how TAFE managers could gather first hand information on the demand for different types of skills in the workplace from their staff and students. Media reports The media reports on recently published studies by academics, government agencies (including commissioned work) and business and industry. They are usually short nontechnical summaries of these reports. It is advisable that a manager considers accessing and reading the full report if it has a direct bearing on his/her area of responsibility. DEWRSB The DEWRSB Job Search web site has the most comprehensive and up-to-date information on a number of aspects of the labour market. Future demand and prospects, current earnings, age, hours worked and gender distribution, vacancies and training requirements are some of the types of information on about 400 occupations that can be accessed from this and other linked sites. Planning guide and Industry Training Board reports Each year ETTE produces a planning guide for VET providers. The guide includes a large amount of historical information on the Victorian labour force at the State and regional level and summaries of ITBs, ETABs and IABs produced training plans. In conjunction with business and industry partners, ITBs and the other bodies occasionally do research on skill and future training needs within their sector. The reports from such research are made available to all relevant agencies.

Guide to Future Jobs and Skills – TAFE Frontiers

Information from staff and students Staff and students at each TAFE Institute could potentially be a rich source of data on the changing skill requirements in the workplace. To harness this potential source requires development of instruments to coherently collect the data, and a method of analysis that extracts useful information from the collected data. The drivers of future jobs and skills are technology, globalisation and social norms. It is impossible to predict with certainty what jobs will disappear and what will emerge, or the skill requirements in these jobs. However an understanding of the past, the future implications of policy and investment decisions currently taken and current practice in the workplace may provide indicators to what might happen in the future.

Guide to Future Jobs and Skills – TAFE Frontiers

Introduction This guide offers information in assessing future jobs, and skills and knowledge required in them, to managers in Technical and Further Education (TAFE) Institutes. The guide outlines the sources of information on future jobs and skills in the economy that would be useful as part of planning in a TAFE Institute. It is clear that the nature of labour demand in the economy plays a crucial role in negotiations with the Office of Employment, Training and Tertiary Education (ETTE) on the funding profile. It is also significant in student choices for courses and hence the demand for services that TAFE Institutes provide. The changing skill and knowledge requirements in jobs, although a more difficult issue to analyse, are also covered. Changing industry, occupation and skill In an era of rapid technological change and globalisation, not only are the distributions of jobs across industry and occupation changing but also the nature of work and skill requirements in those jobs. However the change in skill requirements may not be uniform across all jobs. There are differing views on the impact of technology and globalisation on skill requirements. These views can be categorised in three groups: • the up-skilling view - asserts productivity increases, with broadening of skill requirements and higher average skill requirements; • the de-skilling view - asserts a polarised work force and occupational structure, with a growing mass of unskilled and semi-skilled workers and jobs at the bottom and managers and professionals at the top; and • the mixed-change view - asserts little net change in the skill requirements of work because of offsetting trends, with some jobs experiencing upgrading while others downgrading. This implies that education and training organisations need to be at the forefront of change so that curriculum content of new and current offerings of courses is appropriate and so that innovative strategies can be developed for their delivery. To clarify the sort of information needed about jobs in the future and the skill requirements in these jobs it is necessary to understand the types of decisions that TAFE personnel have to take. Under current arrangements in Victoria, TAFE Institutes: • negotiate with ETTE for their allocation of student contact hours (SCH) to be funded within an agreed profile of courses and units/modules by levels and fields of study; • compete by tender for publicly funded places in excess of those within agreed profiles; • attempt to attract fee-for-service training for employers and students, including international students; and • conduct fee-for-service Personal Enrichment Education and Training Programs.

Guide to Future Jobs and Skills – TAFE Frontiers This means that TAFE Institutes' personnel require information and data to support: • negotiations with ETTE on the profile to be agreed on; • marketing of the agreed profile funded programs; • determination of course content, emphases and delivery modes; • determination of the prospects and marketing of tendered and fee-for-service programs; and • determination of resource allocation across campuses, in particular employment of staff and their on-going professional development. To make the connection between the nature of jobs and skills, resource planning and course and curriculum development in TAFE we need to be clear on exactly what is meant by jobs and skills and how they are measured. A brief overview is provided in the next section and a more detailed discussion is given in the Attachment A.

Guide to Future Jobs and Skills – TAFE Frontiers

Nature of jobs and skills Jobs There is a common understanding of what is a job, but for our purposes a more precise definition of it is a set of tasks to be performed by an individual in return for a wage, salary or fee. Jobs can be full or part-time, and an individual can be employed on an ongoing, fixed-term, casual or a self-employed contract. A set of jobs with sufficiently similar tasks is called an occupation. Defining skills The concept of skill is central to vocational education and training (VET) policy and practice but it is difficult to define and measure. Skill is often equated with a formal qualification and its acquisition through formal study. In the workplace and in the wider world of work skill has a broader meaning, and it is not acquired just through formal education or training but also through other structured training, informal learning and self-education. It is generally accepted that the term “skill” is synonymous with competence or proficiency and that to do something well a worker has to have a good grasp of the processes involved and how they work. Hence skills go hand in hand with knowledge. Two dimensions of work that largely determine the place of a job or person in the hierarchy of skills are complexity and the discretion or autonomy for effective operation. A recent major policy review by the National Skills Taskforce in the United Kingdom grappled with the contemporary meaning of skill and why skills are important if an economy is to be globally successful. It concluded that in the UK at least there were six main areas of skill needing attention: • basic skills – those of literacy and numeracy, the foundation for developing other skills; • generic skills – those transferable skills essential for employability; • intermediate level skills – specific occupational skills needed in intermediate jobs ranging from skilled trade to associate professional occupations; • specialist information and communications technology (ICT) skills—professional skills needed in the ICT sector, and by ICT specialists in other industries; • mathematics skills – above basic numeracy; and • major adult skill gaps – the large proportion of the adult workforce with no or low levels of qualifications. The above listing implies a broader conception of the types of skills required for successful enterprises and countries than has traditionally been used in VET policy formation. Such a list also suggests priorities for future measures of skills. At the present time, for example, there are no soundly based measures of the stock of generic skills in the workforce.

Guide to Future Jobs and Skills – TAFE Frontiers Generic skills or key competencies, as distinct from specific vocational skills, can be used and are needed across a range of different occupations. The Mayer Committee in Australia in 1992 identified the following as employment-related key competencies: • collecting, analysing and organising information; • communicating ideas and information; • planning and organising activities; • working with others and in teams; • using mathematical ideas and techniques; • solving problems; and • using technology. Various reports and analyses have led to suggestions that this list be extended to specify more explicitly: • ICT skills; • personal qualities – eg reliability, motivation, the capacity to work independently; • flexibility and ability to cope with change and uncertainty; and • ability to improve personal learning and performance. The move towards a broader conception of key generic skills recognises that maintaining individual employability and enterprise competitiveness requires people with high levels of autonomy and the capacity for on-going learning. Measuring skills Given that there are such a wide variety of skills and combinations of them the problems of developing indicators are substantial. There are three general approaches to measuring skills: • equating particular occupations with implicit skill levels (non-measurement); • taking qualifications or wage levels of an occupational group as indirect indication of the skill level (indirect measurement); and • explicit assessment of specific dimensions of skill for jobs or workers in jobs (direct measurement). For planning the provision of training it is necessary to seek information on skills using all these forms of measurement. We begin with discussing the use of occupational information as a measure of skills. This is really a combination of the various approaches. The development of the occupational classification takes account of the wage levels and qualifications of individuals in the jobs (indirect measurement) and the specific skills in the jobs (direct measurement).

Guide to Future Jobs and Skills – TAFE Frontiers ASCO occupational classification as a measure In Australia, official occupational statistics provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) are based on the Australian Standard Classification of Occupation (ASCO), second edition, (ABS, 1997). This is a skill-based, hierarchical description and classification in which occupations are classified using two main criteria – skill level and skill specialisation. The criteria to measure skill level are: • formal education and/or training; and • previous experience usually required for entry to the occupation. If these criteria prove to be insufficient then the following additional secondary criteria are used: • breadth/depth of knowledge required; • range of skills required; • variability of operating environment; and • level of autonomy as determined by the degree of discretion and choice which may be required to perform the set of tasks. Using the above criteria five skill levels are identified in ASCO. These skill levels are associated with qualifications based on the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF). Skill specialisation of an occupation is a function of the: • field of knowledge required; • tools and equipment used; • materials worked on; and • goods and services produced as the end product of the tasks performed. In a sense ASCO offers direct measures of skills even though one of the primary keys to determine skill level in it is formal education and/or training. Thus ASCO uses a mixture of the indirect and where ‘necessary’, the direct method of measuring skill. The second edition of ASCO has descriptions of 986 occupations grouped in to nine major groups. The major occupation groups are: • Managers and administrators; • Professionals; • Associate professionals; • Tradespersons and related persons; • Advanced clerical and service workers; • Intermediate clerical, sales and service workers; • Intermediate production and transport workers; • Elementary clerical, sales and service workers; and • Labourers and related workers. Figure 1 in the Appendix B shows employment in these major occupation groups in Australia by qualification level in 2000. Over time the description of the work performed in an occupation can get dated and need to be revised. With technological changes new occupations may emerge and some others may become redundant. The revisions of ASCO tend to lag the actual changes that occur in usage, and are made infrequently (approximately once every ten years in Australia) because of costs and the need to maintain consistency in data collection over time. In other words there is a certain amount of built-in obsolescence in the classification. The rise in multi-skilling may also be blurring the distinction between

Guide to Future Jobs and Skills – TAFE Frontiers occupations and skills. In spite of the drawbacks, ASCO provides a basis for analysis of such things as the changes in distribution of skills over time. This analysis is helped by the fact that data on occupations is collected at three-monthly intervals in the ABS Labour Force surveys. The occupational information in ASCO can be used in a variety of ways. One innovative means based on the work of Robert Reich in the USA is considered in Attachment C.

Guide to Future Jobs and Skills – TAFE Frontiers

Factors affecting the demand for training – the importance of job and skill information Likely job prospects and their related skill needs are a major factor in ETTE's planning which is based on a range of labour market information and advice from industry. In a TAFE Institute's negotiation about its profile with ETTE, student demand for places in its programs and the destination of its graduates are also relevant matters. TAFE Institutes need to anticipate in advance what the demand from students and businesses is likely to be, not only for the programs they offer currently but also for new types of programs that are likely to be demanded in the future. Students' choice of what courses or modules to enrol in is based on their interests, aptitudes and achievement to date and to an extent on their assessment of the type of jobs or career improvement that such enrolment will lead to (Harvey-Beavis and Robinson, 2000). Based on jobs and skills information from the media, career counsellors, friends, family etc, they have evaluated their chances of success in the labour market on completing their studies. Their choice is also restricted by what is offered by training providers in their local area although some may be prepared to travel out of their local area to get something they want that is not offered locally or is perceived to be of an inferior standard. TAFE Institutes offer VET courses to school leavers, those in employment and those without jobs − the unemployed and those not in the labour force. Each group may have a variety of influences in their decision to enrol in a program. A school leaver's choice of a course to enrol in is influenced by their interest in the chosen field as well as what they perceive as improving their employment prospects. An employed person may also enrol in a VET course as a matter of interest but is more likely to do so because they wish to: • update skills required for their current job; or • gain new skills to better perform in their current job; or • learn new skills for a new job, which could be in an occupation other than the one they are in now. Employed persons may be encouraged, and sometimes required, by their employers to enrol in courses that will improve their skills to lift productivity in their current jobs. Those contemplating changing jobs have probably assessed that their labour market prospects will improve on completion of the course. An unemployed person's reasons for enrolling in a course are more likely to be akin to those of school leavers. Some students enrol in a course but only intend to complete certain modules or competencies that make up the course and that interests them. Evidence for this is based on the fact that completion rates of TAFE courses are relatively low (27 percent) while partial completion (module completion) rates are high (50 percent) (Foyster, Hon and Shah, 2000). This suggests a demand for competencies or skills that do not necessarily make up a course or even part of a course, which students or employees find of immediate relevance and need. This type of student behaviour has implications for planning in TAFE Institutes. Planning could be assisted by knowing a priori how many students have the intention of completing only modules, and how many are likely to do so in spite of having enrolled for a full course.

Guide to Future Jobs and Skills – TAFE Frontiers Current programs may need to be revised because of technological changes and novel and flexible delivery strategies developed to cater for the increasingly diverse clientele. TAFE Institutes need be vigilant all the time about the changing skill requirements in jobs and adjust curriculum in the light of these changes if they are to remain relevant in the training market. Such deliberations are likely to be part of the planning of TAFE Institutes and impacts on, among other things, decisions about infrastructure development, human resources and staff professional development. If the proportion of a TAFE Institute's revenue flowing from fee-for-service activities and contestable State funding increases, as it has done until recently, then it becomes important for TAFE managers to read the VET market and the economic information that impacts on it. Many TAFE Institutes are multi-campuses, often located in quite diverse geographical and economic regions. These factors add to the complexity of planning for TAFE Institutes (Grant & Associates, 1996).

Guide to Future Jobs and Skills – TAFE Frontiers

Tracking trends in jobs and skills Data on jobs, classified by occupation and/or industry are readily available. These data are usually collected by the ABS in monthly surveys or five-year censuses and are relatively easy to access. They provide useful information on past trends. The ABS regularly collects jobs' data by occupations (340 occupations) and also by other classifications such as geographical regions (statistical regions), industry, qualifications etc. The rigorous analyses of the trends in the data, however, require the use of statistical methods. It is often more useful to have projections or forecasts of jobs than simply historical data on them. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are employed for this purpose. Qualitative methods can include expert opinion, anticipatory survey and scenario analyses, while examples of quantitative methods are trend projections, cohortcomponent analyses and economy-wide econometric models. Statistical methods Large statistical models have the advantage of being able to integrate a large amount of data that comes from standard statistical collections as well as expert opinion. These models produce projections of growth in the labour market. In spite of their complexity and size all these models are simply approximations of reality. The potential weakness of these models is their relative inability to forecast sharp changes in direction. The models need to incorporate not only the growth or decline in employment but also the employment openings due to turnover that results from individuals leaving for reasons such as retirement, death etc. Even if growth is negative in a labour market segment there are likely to be job openings in it due to turnover. In labour market segments with an ageing workforce turnover can be more important than growth. Turnover can also be high in occupations with job tenure is relatively short, for example, elementary hospitality workers. All forecasts are prone to error, which increases with the length of the projection period and the level of disaggregation in the model. They have built-in assumptions about the functioning of the economy, its industrial structure, rates of technological change, impacts of globalisation and the occupational distribution within industries, some or all of which may not apply in the future. In particular, the occupational distribution is affected by the structure of wages and the forecasting models so far do not allow for changes in relative wages. Information on wages is important in addition to information about the number and distribution of jobs. Nonetheless good reputable forecasting models do provide useful and consistent baseline data. The use of information from such models at the local level, such as by a local government authority, TAFE Institute or Industry Training Board (ITB)1, should be supplemented with local level knowledge. In this way planners at grass roots levels have opportunities to adjust and amend the forecasts on the basis of their in-depth local knowledge.

1

ITB will be used as a generic reference to Industry Training Board (ITB), Enterprise and Training Body

Guide to Future Jobs and Skills – TAFE Frontiers Qualitative methods Quite often the local information collected is qualitative in nature. They have the advantage of providing information that is not routinely measured in standard data collections or cannot be collected by normal methods in a timely fashion. However the way some of the information is collected is sometimes ad hoc and lacking in reliability. Assessment is based on information from samples that are sometimes non-random and small in size. It is generally impossible for the information to be obtained in a way that the employers or experts consulted make the same assumptions, for example, about the overall economic framework in which future jobs will occur. Hence it is unlikely that one can obtain a coherent and consistent picture of likely employment change from these approaches alone. One problem with anticipatory surveys, in which employers are asked of their expectation of labour demand or shortage, is that their expectations of the labour market tend to be lag rather than lead indicators of economic activity (Webster, 1992). Thus it has been suggested that it would be more appropriate to ask employers of their expectation of such things as investment or sales, and use this information as input into a model for the labour market, than to directly survey labour demand. In general, surveys of investment expectations are considered the most reliable (Granger, 1989). It is in providing at least indicative information on changes in the skills within occupations that surveys of, and discussions with, employers in the local area are important, even if it is impossible to provide the information in as coherent a manner as in the large forecasting models. There is a strong argument, therefore, for TAFE planners to use a blend of information from large forecast models that incorporate good knowledge of the State, national and global economies and information derived locally. Having all this information from the various sources is one thing but distilling it down for the purposes of planning in TAFE is yet another thing. It is imperative though that the users have reasonable understanding of the different aspects, such as reliability and currency, of the information they may use in their deliberation. They should be briefed regularly on the main features of the economy and any change in the parameters of the forecasting model that may have affected the current forecasts. It is also the responsibility of the forecast model builders to explain the forecasts and their limitations to the planners. TAFE managers seeking to utilise forecasts or models in their planning should consult their Planning Department or ETTE to ensure understanding of their uses and misuses.

Guide to Future Jobs and Skills – TAFE Frontiers

Criteria for assessing information Assessing the quality of the information on future jobs and skills is probably the most difficult of all problems in this area of work. There are limitations that apply to all information obtained from surveys because of the inherent errors – statistical errors which arise for example if the sample is not representative, or non-statistical errors for example, due to poorly framed questions. Sometimes there is an element of subjectivity in interpreting the analyses on these data. Information based on case studies has limitations too because of the difficulty in generalising from small samples that are often chosen conveniently. There are no set rules that can be applied across the board. Some criteria for assessing the information though are: • reliability; • consistency; and • frequency. In general, most official data, especially those from the ABS and other government agencies are reliable. However, one needs to be careful when using data that are at low levels of aggregation. These data are also usually consistent in the sense that the methodology used for collecting them is rigorous and robust. Since there are so many users who rely on these data, consistent classifications are used to collect and sort them. Periodically when a new classification is introduced it is ensured that a concordance is provided to link the old data with the new. It is also important that the data are collected on a regular basis so that updating of the information can occur. Over time data that have been collected reliably, consistently and frequently allows for time series analyses. It has to be understood that forecasts from large and complex economic models are also prone to error. Most such models use vast amounts of data gathered in surveys that already contain measurement error. The assessment of the quality of the forecasts from these models is therefore a very difficult exercise even for those who maintain these models. Some more reasons for the considerable difficulty involved are: • changing systems of classifications for industries, occupations and qualifications • major revisions of historical databases • late publications of crucial data sets, and • major and significant improvements in the modelling framework. However the reputable models, which have often taken a number of years to develop and are usually continuously refined, yield useful if not completely accurate information.

Guide to Future Jobs and Skills – TAFE Frontiers

Where to find information on future jobs and skills This section briefly looks at some sources of information on future jobs and skills that are easy to access. At the end of the section we suggest how TAFE Institutes can set up a system to tap into the information that their students and staff may possess about the changing skill requirements in jobs. Media reports Reports in the media of the economy in general and the labour market in particular, on which a lot of public and student opinion is formed, are based on a variety of sources. A lot of them are precis of research reports for governments and businesses and academic research. Research reports are based on privately gathered data through interviews and surveys or on data gathered and published by the ABS. Although the media puts out important information and reaches quite a wide audience, usually it is not sufficiently coherent and comprehensive for planning purposes. It is important for TAFE Institutes to have access to and understand the original sources of information on which the media reports are based. Career advice and current information on occupations The Department of Employment, Workplace Relation and Small Business (DEWRSB) publish comprehensive job and career information in Job Outlook and Job Outlook Online. They give detailed information on each of about 400 occupations. Job Outlook Online is dynamically linked to the Australian Job Search (AJS) web site, which uses information from the Australian Courses and Careers Database (OZJAC). For each listed occupation the site includes: • current employment; • median weekly full-time earnings; • job prospects (good, average or limited); • main employing industries; • distribution of hours worked; • age distribution; • gender distribution; • unemployment rate; • regional distribution of employment (State-level); • tasks that may be expected to be performed in the job; • skill requirements (mainly based on ASCO descriptions); • associated occupations; • job vacancies by location; • entry-level training courses; and • course providers, course fees etc. It is planned to update a lot of the on-line information in Job Outlook Online on a biannual basis, while information on vacancies is updated almost daily. The target groups for the information are students contemplating career choice, careers counsellors, employment services and education and training planners. DEWRSB compiles its information from various sources They include:

Guide to Future Jobs and Skills – TAFE Frontiers • •

analyses of data on the labour force from the ABS; consultation with employers (especially those who had recently advertised positions); • professional and industry organisations; • training bodies; • commercial forecasting organisations; • Centre of Policy Studies (CoPS), Monash University (projections of employment growth by industry and occupation, simulated using MONASH, a large economywide forecasting model which uses as part of its input information on current and planned investments in projects in each region of the nation and macroeconomic forecasts both prepared by ACCESS Economics); and • CEET (projections of labour turnover by occupation used to estimate total job openings) DEWRSB determines job prospects in more than 400 occupations over the six-year forecast horizon on the basis of the above labour growth and turnover projections. Skill shortages exist when employers have difficulty filling, or are unable to fill, vacancies in recognised occupations or specialisations (at reasonable levels of pay, conditions and location). DEWRSB makes regular assessments of skill shortages in Trades, Professional and ICT occupations2. Shortages are assessed at both the national and State level, and whether it is in the metropolitan or regional area of the State. The September 2000 issue of Job Outlook includes 5-year historical employment trends, to May 2000, in 17 sectors of industry and projections of employment for the 1999-00 to 2005-06 period. The publication also provides short commentary on 21st Century IT skills and on some industries that are experiencing strong growth and those that have a very large employment share. For example, in the five years to May 2000 Property and Business Services recorded an employment growth of 29 percent, and within it employment in Computing Services grew by an exceptional 145 percent. A short summary is also presented of occupations that have good job prospects. For example, job prospects for Chef, Cooks (including Fast Food Cooks), Bakers, Pastry Cooks, Waiters, Travel Agents and Tour Guides in the Food, Hospitality and Tourism industry are expected to be good over the period to 2005-06. ETTE Planning Guide ETTE put out Planning Guide for Providers of Training and Further Education in Victoria 2001 as a resource for the State Training System (PETE, 2000). This guide has been compiled using advice and information from the: • ABS; • DEWRSB; • Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs (DETYA); • ITBs; • CoPS; and • ETTE research including the Labour Market Training Needs model (LMTN) (revised and re-calibrated by CEET at the end of 1999). It contains a vast amount of information on State and regional labour market and training delivery and needs including: 2

The ABS and the ANZ Bank conduct their own surveys of job vacancies.

Guide to Future Jobs and Skills – TAFE Frontiers • • •

employment by industry and occupation (including projected employment change by industry in the period 1999 to 2004); labour force participation rates; and unemployment.

The guide contains data on delivery of, and participation in, training by industry for 1995 and 1999. Training needs for 2001 are compiled on the basis of advice from industry. The ITBs have assessed training needs by region, industry and AQF levels. In general, however, only commencements for apprenticeships/traineeships for 2001 are quantified. The ITBs prepare three-year training needs plans. These detailed plans may in fact include more details than those provided in the ETTE guide, and are available for purchase from the relevant ITB. Some ITBs include information from case studies that they may have conducted in their sector. Research officers of ITBs often have considerable knowledge of their industries and are worth consulting too. They also have valuable networks that can be tapped into. Similarly Curriculum Maintenance Managers (CMM) may also be a useful source of information on curriculum changes being envisaged. Using students and staff as a source of information A lot of students work while enrolled in TAFE courses. Some of them work in enterprises that are at the leading edge in their respective industry sectors or are undergoing change. These students are more than likely to be aware of the range of skills that are currently in demand and are potentially a rich source of information about future jobs and the changing skill requirements in jobs, which at present is not tapped. Similarly students not in employment are a potential source of information on the skill requirements for such groups as the unemployed or those returning to the workforce. Teachers and instructors may also have close links with enterprises, may have had recent industry placement with them or are employed in some capacity with them. They too are potentially a rich resource for information on the future skill requirements in jobs. Collecting the information Perhaps this sort of data is already collected in an ad hoc manner, but for it to be utilised well and to obtain useful information from it, it has to be: • collected efficiently and systematically, which requires articulating the reasons for collecting the data and developing a framework and instruments to collect it; • analysed to produce useful information for planning purposes; and • integrated with other planning information and into procedures for changing or amending curriculum content. The collection and analysis could best be done at the departmental level. The departments could also develop instruments for gathering the information to suit their particular needs. The Institute planners should be involved although their involvement is more important at the end, particularly to ensure consistency of information from across different departments, than in the earlier phases of the exercise.

Guide to Future Jobs and Skills – TAFE Frontiers

Teachers’ role For such an exercise to succeed it is crucially important that all teachers, including casuals, understood the purpose of this work and were actively involved in the activity from the design phase to the analysis and decision-making. Often those on casual contracts are left out of the planning and decision-making loops. It is important to try to include casual staff in this exercise for two reasons. First, this group comprises a significant proportion of all teachers in Victorian TAFE nowadays, making up 36 percent of the total in 1998 (Shah, 2000), and hence too large to ignore. Second, many from this group have ongoing contacts in industry, and hence would be knowledgeable about current and future skill requirements in jobs. Other sources of information There are other sources of information that are available from time to time that may also broaden the information base to use for planning in TAFE. A search of the web sites of agencies that publish reports, often on specific issues, can prove to be useful. Some of the more important sites which are listed in the references (including ones already mentioned) are those of: • DEWRSB; • ETTE; • ITBs; • Department of Education, and Employment and Training (DEET); • DETYA; • Business Council of Australia (BCA); • Commercial economic information services (generally for a fee); • National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) which also lists links to other important sites particularly university research centres; and • Local Government Authorities (LGAs).

Guide to Future Jobs and Skills – TAFE Frontiers

Concluding comment Decision making about resource allocation in TAFE is a complex task. It can be assisted by access to and understanding of the vast amount of information being gathered and disseminated by various public and private institutions. The information, together with vital local area knowledge, will provide a basis for sound informed, although not perfect, judgement. The drivers of future jobs and skills are technology, globalisation and social norms. It is impossible to predict with certainty what jobs will disappear and what will emerge, or the skill requirements in these jobs, but analyses of historical data together with current practice in the workplace may provide indicators to or a plausible picture of what might happen in the future. Just because there may be a decline in the growth of jobs requiring particular skills does not necessarily mean that there will be no demand for those skills. This is because job openings are a result of employment growth and turnover in jobs. Notwithstanding the problem of obsolescence of classification systems, such as ASCO, over time, changing occupational patterns do tell us something about future jobs and skill needs. Only large forecasting models are able to integrate in a rigorous and comprehensive manner what is happening in the whole economy and inter-relationships that exist between different economic and demographic variables. However there is a need for the forecasts that are currently produced to be more relevant to the day-to-day decision-making in TAFE Institutes. Some steps towards this goal have already been taken with the new DEWRSB web site on jobs and the ETTE planning guide, which is continuously improved. Direct forecasting of skill changes and needs within occupations is, however, more problematic because of a lack of consensus on the definition of skills and ways to measure them. Even if there was to be a solution to this issue, which is not an easy task to achieve by any means, changing skill requirements over time makes the task difficult. Thus it is difficult to develop models to forecast skills within occupations, especially for occupations experiencing rapid technological change or workplace organisational change. Information from case studies or specific sectoral studies, such as those conducted by ITBs, provides useful supplements to fill gaps in knowledge of what is happening at the coalface that the large models fail to provide. A method is proposed to assist TAFE Institutes to tap their staff and students for knowledge of the current skill requirements in jobs. If such a method was implemented and produced useful information then it would help fill in the gap in the knowledge of changes in the skill needs in jobs.

Guide to Future Jobs and Skills – TAFE Frontiers

References Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) (1997), ASCO - Australian Standard Classification of Occupations, (Second Edition), ABS, Canberra. Becker, G. (1974), Human Capital, (2nd ed.), University of Chicago, Chicago. Department of Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business, (DEWRSB) Job Outlook, Canberra. DEWRSB, Skill shortages in Trades, Professional and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) occupations, Canberra. Foyster, J., K.F. Hon & C. Shah (2000), Student flows through Australian TAFE courses, NCVER, Adelaide. Granger, C.W.J. (1989), Forecasting in Business and Economics, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, San Diego. Grant, J & Associates (1996) Strategic Regional Planning for Industry Training Boards STB Harvey-Beavis, A. & L. Robinson (2000), Views and influences: Tertiary education, secondary students and their advisers, EIP Report No. 00/8, Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Canberra. Keep, E. & K. Mahew (1999), "The assessment: knowledge, skills and competitiveness", Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 15, 1-15. Laine, C. de, P. Laplagne & S. Stone (2000), The Increasing Demand for Skilled Workers in Australia: the Role of Technical Change, Productivity Commission Staff Research Paper, Ausinfo, Canberra. Maglen, L. & C. Shah (1999), "Emerging occupational patterns in Australia in the era of globalisation and rapid technological change: Implications for education and training", CEET Working paper No. 21, Monash University-ACER Centre for the Economics of Education and Training. Mayer, E., (Chair), (1992), Key Competencies. Report of the Committee to advise the Australian Education Council and Ministers of Vocational Education, Employment and Training on employment-related key competencies for postcompulsory education and training, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra. National Skills Task Force (2000), Skills for all: Research Report from the National Skills Task Force, SKT 29, Department for Education and Employment (UK), Nottingham. Office of Post Compulsory Education Training and Employment (PETE) (2000), Planning Guide for Providers of Training and Further Education in Victoria 2001, PETE, Melbourne. Reich, R. (1992), The Work of Nations, Simon and Schuster, New York. Shah, C. (2000), "Employment shifts in the TAFE workforce in Victoria, 1993-98", Working Paper No. 27, ACER-Monash University Centre for the Economics of Education and Training.

Guide to Future Jobs and Skills – TAFE Frontiers Spence, M. (1973), "Job market signalling", Quarterly Journal of Economics, 87, 355374. Spenner, K. (1985), "The upgrading and downgrading of occupations: issues, evidence, and implications for education", Review of Educational Research, 55, 125-54. Webster, E.M. (1992), "Labour market forecasting in Australia: The science of the art", Journal of the Australian Population Association, 9, 185-205.

Guide to Future Jobs and Skills – TAFE Frontiers

Some useful web sites ABS

www.abs.gov.au

ANTA

www.anta.gov.au

CEET

www.education.monash.edu.au/centres/ceet

CoPS

www.monash.edu.au/policy

DEWRSB

www.dewrsb.gov.au/employment/publications/joboutlook

DEWRSB

www.jobsearch.gov.au/joboutlook

DEWRSB

www.dewrsb.gov.au/employment/publications/skillshortages

ETTE

www.pete.vic.gov.au

DEET

www.deet.vic.gov.au/deet

DETYA

www.detya.gov.au

BCA

www.bca.com.au

NCVER

www.ncver.edu.au

LGAs

www.mav.asn.au

ITBs

Can be accessed from ETTE website

Guide to Future Jobs and Skills – TAFE Frontiers

Attachment A

Concepts and measurement of skill

Concepts of skill No concept is more important for VET than the notion of skill, or competency as it is often referred to. The concept of skill is central to VET policy and practice but it is difficult to define and even more difficult to measure. In the VET system skill is often equated with a formal qualification and its acquisition through formal study. However, in the work place and in the wider world of work skill has a broader meaning, and it is not acquired just through formal education or training but also through other structured training, informal learning and self-education. Because the concept is socially constructed definitions for skill can be approached from different standpoints. Human capital theory, for example, assumes that skill refers to the capacities of workers to perform tasks, which they acquire on and off the job, and the capacities have meaning only when they translate into productivity and job rewards, such as earnings (Becker, 1974). While there is clearly a relationship between educational attainment and earnings the nature of the relationship between skill and earnings is complex and difficult to establish. Some argue that the role of education and training is more to do with getting jobs than performing them well (Spence, 1973), when for example employers use education attainment only loosely related to the job in question, to ‘queue’ job applicants. Others emphasize the importance of autonomy and control over the work process in defining skill. More recently a major policy review by the National Skills Taskforce in the United Kingdom grappled with the contemporary meaning of skill and why skills are important if an economy is to be globally successful (National Skills Task Force, 2000). It is generally accepted that skills are of different types and levels. The term skill is synonymous with competence or proficiency. To do something well an individual should have a good grasp of the processes involved and how they work, and hence skills go hand in hand with knowledge. Although some skills can be performed without a good deal of underpinning knowledge and understanding, to apply skills in varying contexts and situations demands a fundamental level of knowledge related to that skill. Skills and knowledge are attributes of a person or requirements of a job. Some jobs make greater demand than others and some individuals are more endowed with certain types of skills and knowledge than others. What determines skill? The National Skills Task Force highlighted two dimensions of work that largely determine the place of a job or person in the hierarchy of skills: • complexity; and • discretion required to operate effectively. The complexity of a job varies by the techniques, dexterity and the range of tasks involved for its performance. It also depends on the knowledge required about the operation of equipment, the product, processes, and how different stages are integrated. Discretion (or autonomy) refers to the element of choice and the potential to exercise independent judgement. All jobs consist of a mix of judgement and prescription because

Guide to Future Jobs and Skills – TAFE Frontiers relative balance between the requirement of judgement and prescription determines the ranking of the skill in the overall hierarchy. Another dimension of skill is the extent to which performance of tasks involves manual or cognitive processes. Many jobs require a combination of both. Even though some people may suggest a hierarchy along this dimension, with cognitive skills rated higher than manual skills, the distinction is not all that clear. There are many manual jobs that require relatively high levels of cognitive skill, for example, many crafts and technical jobs. Conversely many non-manual jobs require low levels of cognitive skill, for example, some clerical and call centre jobs. Generic and occupation specific skills Skills can also be considered as being generic or specific to an occupation. Generic skills or key competencies can be used across a large range of different occupations. In a report to the Australian Education Council and Ministers of Vocational Education, Employment and Training, the Mayer Committee (Mayer, 1992) identified the following as comprising the employment-related key competencies: • collecting, analysing and organising information; • communicating ideas and information; • planning and organising activities; • working with others and in teams; • using mathematical ideas and techniques; • solving problems; and • using technology. Almost a decade later, the National Skills Task Force came up with a similar list to the Mayer key competencies, but also included: • IT skills (which is close to what the Mayer Committee meant by technology); and • ability to improve personal learning and performance. In contrast some skills are specific to an occupation or occupational group. Some of these skills (eg foreign language skills) are transferable across some occupations, while others (eg working with certain machines) are not. Other skills are even more specific and are only applicable within a firm or job. There is also a third group of skills, or attributes as some call them (Keep and Mahew, 1999), which are even more difficult to define. These encapsulate employers' desire for employees who are flexible and who are able to cope with change and uncertainty. The Mayer key competency of working with others and in teams is in a sense a personal attribute too, and could be included as part of this group. Personal attributes can be improved to a certain extent through some sorts of learning. The demand for a skill is likely to be affected by such things as technology, work organisation and social norms, which because of their evolving nature mean that some skills become obsolete over time. For example, the skills involved in repairing a mechanical typewriter were valuable in the bygone era but are no longer in demand with the advent of the word-processor. In general, all things being equal, skills that take longer to acquire attract a higher price in the market place. Mostly more than one skill is required to perform a job and the range needed changes over time, particularly when changes in technology are rapid. The balance between retention of existing skills and

Guide to Future Jobs and Skills – TAFE Frontiers the development of new skills is the key to understanding how skills need are changing within jobs (National Skills Task Force, 2000). Approaches to analysing skills According to Spenner (1985) there are three general approaches to analysing skills: • equating particular occupations with implicit skill levels (non-measurement); • taking schooling (qualifications) or wage levels of an occupational group as indirect indication of the skill level (indirect measurement); and • explicit assessment of specific dimensions of skill for jobs or workers in jobs (direct measurement). The non-measurement approach This approach simply equates occupation groups such as professional, managerial, white-collar or blue-collar with implicit skill levels. It has substantial validity problems. For example, the traditional white-collar/blue-collar distinction may obscure rather than help ascertain skill levels in jobs. With this approach it is difficult to make precise judgements about content, composition shifts, or quantities of change. The approach is used in a recent research paper for the Productivity Commission: The Increasing Demand for Skilled Workers in Australia: the Role of Technical Change (de Laine, Laplagne and Stone, 2000). The paper divides employed persons into high skilled and other workers. High skilled workers are defined as managers and administrators, professionals and para-professionals. This approach is not very useful in thinking about education and training needs as the specific dimensions are unclear. The indirect approach This approach takes qualifications or wage levels of an occupational group as an indication of the skill level. However, the dimensions of skill also remain unclear with this indirect approach. Simply using qualifications as a proxy for skill can be problematic. The average increase in the level of qualifications in an occupation may be an indication of excess supply over demand and may not mean a rise in the skill level for jobs in that occupation. Conversely, a drop in the average level of qualifications may be an indication of skill shortage. Thus care needs to be exercised in interpreting results from such analyses. Employers often screen potential employees by the qualifications they hold. Qualifications can be taken to indicate a number of desirable characteristics in employees including their capacity to be trained for skills required in a job, but may not necessarily measure the true level of skills required to perform in the job. The use of wage rates as an indicator of skill levels in jobs has problems too. It requires complex assumptions about constancy in the supply of and demand for labour. In general, the higher the wages the higher the skill requirements for the job. However other factors, such as a skill shortage, geographical location, private or public sector employment, industrial award and non-economic factors such as social prestige or history can be a cause of levels of, and variations, in wage rates. Direct measurement Spenner's third suggestion of direct measurement has the most advantages. It allows more precise comparisons of change across studies, and investigation of issues of validity and reliability are more straightforward. The approach is often adopted for commercial job analysis, and in determining training needs, competencies, etc. Job evaluation systems, however, are not based on consistent criteria regarding skill

Guide to Future Jobs and Skills – TAFE Frontiers definition. Consensus does not even exist on the dimensions of skill or how it should be measured for jobs. There is paucity of data available at the system level, especially time series data. Nevertheless data on the explicit assessment of skills in jobs from even small sectoral or case studies are an important complement to analyses based on indirect assessment. Given that skill is a social construct it is difficult to look at it in isolation from a host of historical and social influences.

Guide to Future Jobs and Skills – TAFE Frontiers

Attachment B

Employment by major occupational groupings

Figure 1. Employment by main occupation group and qualification, Australia, May 2000 Managers and administrators Professionals Associate professionals Tradespersons and related workers Advanced clerical and service workers Intermediate clerical, sales and service workers Intermediate production and transport workers Elementary clerical, sales and service workers Labourers and related workers 0 VET qualifications

200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800

Higher Education qualifications

Source: ABS, Transition from Education to Work, Cat No 6227.0.

Without qualifications

Guide to Future Jobs and Skills – TAFE Frontiers

Attachment C

Alternative occupational groupings

During periods of rapid change in the nature of work suggestions are often put forward for alternative classifications that are supposed to capture these changes more succinctly, and indicate trends, that the standard classifications seem not able to capture. Most often these alternatives equate particular occupations with implicit skill levels, and hence, are using a non-measurement approach to analysing skills. An example of such a classification is that suggested by Reich (1992) in which he postulates that future workers will be basically of three types: • symbolic analysts – manipulate symbols - numerical, visual, scientific, musical, electronic symbols - as their major task; the tasks include problem identification and solving and strategic-broking; • in-person service workers – provide person-to-person services; and • routine production workers (include both white- and blue-collar workers) – perform repetitive tasks that are often done one step at a time. Maglen and Shah (1999) subsequently adapted and refined this classification into a nine-way classification of jobs. In most instances the suggested new classifications are alternative ways of grouping the standard occupations, they do not indicate the changing skill needs within occupations. For this reason, and also because they are rarely used for producing information on a regular basis, which is important for annual planning, their usage is in drawing attention to broad changes in the economy rather than as a guide to anticipating training demand at the provider level. In this report we shall focus on information that is based on national standards because such information is the most widely available and universally understood.