Labour Market

Information for demand-

driven TVET

Richard Curtain
25 August 2010
 Need for a demand focus

• Close linkage with the labour market is

the single most important economic
requirement for a training system.

ADB, 2004, Improving Technical Education & Vocational Training:

Strategies for Asia, p 65.
 Need for a demand focus
• Most TVET systems in the region tend to
operate in the dark both on skills demand
and on supply. They lack feedback from
their markets, such as labor market
studies and tracer studies on the
destination and performance of graduates.

ADB, 2008, Skilling the Pacific: Technical and Vocational Education and
Training in the Pacific, p 127.
 Demand for skills
not easy to identify
• Labour market information (LMI) systems can
help training systems to adjust to changing
needs. However, care should be taken in
supporting the establishment of LMI
systems. They have proved very difficult to
make successful. Design of and investments in
LMI systems should be preceded by a careful
analysis of their operational problems and
constraints in third world countries (ADB, 2004,
p92)
 Labour market data
often complex
• Analysis of much LM data requires end
user have skilled & experienced,
operational-level staff as well as an
efficient administration and
management structure
• Funding and skills more likely to be
sustainable at a regional level.
 What type of Labour
Market Information?
• Need to be clear first about the use for
the labour market information.

• Role in TVET will require different types

of labour market information
Government policy maker

• Government policy maker seeking to

overcome skill shortages needs
economy-wide data, by industry sector
and occupation to inform decisions
about resource allocation
• So data from recent census, and admin
data on emigration/immigration are
valuable
 National Training Council
as coordinator
• National Training Council needs similar
sector-wide information to coordinate the
supply of training between institutions, public
& private
• So data on education levels, occupations and
industry sectors important
• But forecasts of future demand for specific
occupations or skills not possible
Manager of training provider
for formal & informal sectors
• Needs to work out whether courses are
relevant

• So uses tracer graduate destination

surveys to assess outcomes and
relevance of training are important.
 TVET Course providers
• Need to know how many graduates find work,
type of work, wages, which employers, where,
uses of skills acquired, & feedback re relevance
of training
• Finding out about labour market outcomes
shows whether skills are in demand & by whom
• Helps to find work placements for students
• Helps to get graduates into jobs through work
placement with expanding enterprise
 TVET Course providers

• Tracer destination survey can also

identify changes to course content by
asking graduates was it was well taught
& did it give them skills relevant to their
work?
 Prospective students
• Prospective trainees need information on
graduate outcomes to decide whether it is
worth the effort to undertake a course

• This requires making the results of the

tracer surveys public
 Programme developers

• Training needs analysis requires

information on the functional literacy
level of target population
• Applies to design of training for informal
sector
• Also applies to assessing the
‘trainability’ of prospective TVET
trainees for formal sector
 Data sources on labour market

1. Admin data on skill shortages: Emigration &

Immigration cards, work permits
– Admin data on industry employment profile
– Admin data on new demand for skills
2.National Census data
3. Special purpose surveys based on sample of national
population
4. Employer/enterprise surveys re skill needs
5. Special purpose surveys of TVET potential trainees,
graduates and employees
6. Analysis & dissemination of labour market data
 Admin data re skill
shortages
• Emigration data not collected
• Limited data on arrivals in country of
destination for some sending countries
• Immigration data: partial only
• Work permits undercount actual number
• Need to collect emigrants’ education level,
occupation & purpose for leaving
• Need data on expatriate labour re detailed
occupation category
 Admin data on demand

• Data on Private Foreign Direct

Investment but may be too general
• International donor projects (i.e.
Infrastructure, climate change
mitigation)
• Government notices about contracts
awarded to identify which enterprise
has new jobs available
 National Census

• Every 10 years most, some 5 years not

info out of date
• Information from head of household
• Information on occupations/industry of
persons in paid work may be indirect, &
not detailed
 Special national surveys

• Examples are Demographic & Health

Survey (DHS), Household Income &
Expenditure Surveys (HIES), Labour
Force Surveys (LFS)
• Based on responses of individuals
• Info on employment/unemployment,
occupation, wages are a byproduct only
• Occupation categories may be too broad
 Employer surveys

• Formal enterprises only?

• Employers vary greatly in their capacity
& willingness to spell out their future
skills needs
• Does enterprise have a system of
formal job descriptions
• Skills vacancies in private sector eg
construction depend on flow of work
 Special surveys of TVET
graduates
• Tracer destination surveys show:
– if meeting demand for skills, how well & to adjust
training supply
– If results made public, help potential trainees to
make informed choice
• However, need to be regular, cover most
graduates to avoid bias, independent, have
dedicated funding, use in-country researchers
• Course providers also need incentives to focus on
outcomes
 Surveys of functional
literacy & numeracy
• Simple responses of yes/no re literacy
not good enough
• Different levels of literacy/numeracy
required for different purposes
• Evidence that literacy levels too low in
PICs for work in overseas labour
markets eg maritime work
 Analysis & dissemination
of labour market data
• Need skilled & experienced operational-
level staff and efficient administration
• Need an informed audience of political
leaders, institutional managers &
citizens who are
– statistically literate and
– want to use evidence as the basis for
allocating resources
 Barriers to use of evidence in
policy making
•The failure to disseminate the reports of baseline
achievements in literacy and numeracy in Forum island
countries remains one of the challenges facing education
authorities in the region.

Consultation Meeting on the Pacific Education Development Framework, 12

August 2010

•Key education stakeholders [need to] spend time to study, discuss

and understand the monitoring reports, and [be] able to use the
report findings to inform decisions related to the standards of
literacy and numeracy
Summary: what is needed

• To get appropriate statistics on the

demand for skills requires:
– special data sources eg
• migrants going & coming,
• functional literacy of target populations,
• enterprises &
• TVET graduate destinations
– End user with authority & resources to
request & analyse the data