Required and available skills in the European labor market for higher education graduates

1
Required and available skills in the European
labor market for higher education graduates

• Christoph Meng
• Research Centre for Education and the Labour
  Market
• Maastricht University

2
Agenda

• Measuring Skills
• Recent Surveys
• Results
• Concluding Remarks

3
Measuring Skills

• Distinction between competency and skill
• Group of skills
• Referring to a single underlying dimension
• Condition to fulfill complex tasks

4
Measuring Skills

• Self-assessment
• Pros and cons
• Direct at the source of information
• Measurement errors
• Pompousness or exaggerated modesty
• Influenced by surroundings
• Vagueness/ambiguities in question
• Different yardsticks

5
Recent Surveys

• CHEERS
• 3 years after graduation
• Survey in 1998/1999
• European countries Japan
• REFLEX
• 5 years after graduation
• Survey in 2005/2006
• European countries Japan

6
First serie of studies

• CHEERS data set
• Discipline versus Academic
• Acquisition
• Role
• Value

7
Competencies

• Discipline-specific
• Theoretical knowledge
• Knowledge of methods

• Academic
• Learning abilities
• Reflective thinking
• Problem-solving
• Analytical
• Documenting

8
Requirements
9
Requirements
10
Requirements
11
Acquisition
12
Acquisition
13
Acquisition
14
Competencies and ILM versus OLM
15
Competencies and ILM versus OLM
16
Role and value of Competencies

• OLM countries
• Allocation Discipline-specific competencies
• Training Academic competencies
• Wage Mismatch in discipline-specific
  competencies
• ILM countries
• Allocation no effect
• Training Academic competencies
• Wage Mismatch in academic competencies (UK)

17
Second serie of studies

• REFLEX data set
• Requirement of skills in different sectors
• Trend setting organisation
• Trend follower

18
Requirements
19
Requirements
20
Requirements
21
Match
22
Concluding remarks

• Self assessment
• Absolute comparisons NO
• Relative comparisons YES
• Anchors ? current and future research