By Guillermo Montt and Glenda Quintini. The young psychology graduate working at a call centre or the mathematician making a fortune as a trader: we have all heard these stories or some version of them. But just how frequent are these situations and what are the consequences for the individuals involved is unknown. More...

By Glenda Quintini and Stéphane Carcillo. The so-called NEET rate (the share of youth neither in employment nor in education or training currently stands at 14% in the OECD on average, up from 12.5% before the Great Recession. But in some countries, the problem is much bigger and has been exacerbated by the crisis. For example, the NEET rate rose by about 10 percentage points to exceed 20% in Greece, Italy and Spain. More...

By Glenda Quintini. Skills significantly increase an individual’s chances of being employed; and, conditional on being in employment, increase the chances of being in a productive and rewarding job. The Survey of Adult Skills (2012) shows that the proportion of adults working increases with the level of proficiency in literacy, and both unemployment and inactivity decrease the higher the proficiency of the working population. Besides, wages also steadily improve with the level of skills. Skills also significantly increase the chances that workers will be in a stable job (compared to being in an atypical, often precarious job). More...

By Glenda Quintini. Vocational education and training are highly valued by many. In 2010, the European Ministers for Vocational Education and Training, the European Social Partners and the European Commission issued the Bruges Communiqué, which describes the global vision for VET in Europe 2020. In this vision, vocational skills and competencies are considered as important as academic skills and competencies. VET is expected to play an important role in achieving two Europe 2020 headline targets set in the education field: a) reduce the rate of early school leavers from education to less than 10 percent; b) increase the share of 30 to 40 years old having completed tertiary or equivalent education to at least 40 percent.
But just how good is VET compared to general education in getting people into well-paid jobs? Unfortunately, the few existing studies yield mixed results partly due to differences in the structure and quality of VET across countries. The new study “The effects of Vocational Education on adult skills and wages. What we learn from PIAAC?” by Brunello and Rocco (2015) released today addresses precisely this question by using the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC). Data comparability across countries, the breath of countries involved, and the almost unique presence of information on assessed skills, training, earnings and employment makes this survey especially valuable to study the different facets of VET as compared to more academic education. More...