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Forecasting skill requirements at national and company levels
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Wilson, Robert A. (2001) Forecasting skill requirements at national and company levels. In: Descy, Pascaline and Tessaring, Manfred, (eds.) Second report on vocational training research in Europe 2000. CEDEFOP Reference Series, 2 . Luxembourg: European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training, pp. 561-592. ISBN 9289600365
An open access version can be found in:
Official URL: http://aei.pitt.edu/43153/1/A6962.pdf
Abstract
The document reviews recent work on demand and supply forecasts at national level, broken down by sector, occupation and qualification, covering both European and other countries. This includes an assessment of forecasting approaches and results at regional and local levels. A review of the methods used and the results obtained at company level is also presented. Labour market forecasts can be seen as having two prime roles: first to guide policy decisions made by the government and its representatives; and second, as a general aid to the individual actors operating within the labour market, providing them with information which can aid their own decision making. The fact that considerable efforts to conduct such forecast are going on all over the world suggests that, on balance, such activities are regarded as very useful and worth substantial investment by the public sector.
It is concluded, therefore, that forecasting of the labour market is inevitable. The only real question, is how this should be done. There appear to be two main possibilities:
a) centrally, in a transparent, logical, consistent and systematic fashion, recognising the 'public
good' aspects of such work;
b) or in a decentralised, often ad hoc fashion, by individual actors or groups, frequently based
on implicit rather than explicit assumptions.
A number of different approaches have been adopted to anticipate changing skill needs. The traditional approach has usually involved formal, quantitative methods, focusing mainly on occupations. More recently, other, rather less formal methods have been developed which have a strong qualitative emphasis. However, many exercises nowadays involve a mixture of both quantitative and qualitative methods, which are regarded as complementary. Increasingly, the focus is moving away from occupations to consider more general aspects of skill requirements.
Item Type: | Book Item | ||||
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Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor | ||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Institute for Employment Research | ||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Employment forecasting | ||||
Series Name: | CEDEFOP Reference Series | ||||
Publisher: | European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training | ||||
Place of Publication: | Luxembourg | ||||
ISBN: | 9289600365 | ||||
Book Title: | Second report on vocational training research in Europe 2000 | ||||
Editor: | Descy, Pascaline and Tessaring, Manfred | ||||
Official Date: | 2001 | ||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 2 | ||||
Number of Pages: | 609 | ||||
Page Range: | pp. 561-592 | ||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||
Related URLs: | |||||
Open Access Version: |
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