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There has been much talk recently about looming shortages in Canada's supply of individuals working in health occupations. To understand the degree to which the supply of workers in health occupations is meeting (and will meet) the health needs of Canadians, Health Canada - through the Advisory Committee on Health Delivery and Human Resources (ACHDHR) - contracted the Centre for Education Statistics at Statistics Canada to study the relationship between education and training and the supply of entrants into health occupations. Using major Statistics Canada data sources related to the education and training of Canadians, the intent of this second data report from the Health Human Resources and Education Project is to provide a jurisdictional view of the information already released at the national level, as well as to provide information (at the Canada and jurisdictional levels) on additional topics that were identified in the information needs outline that were not covered in the first data report, which was released in 2007. As such, this report reveals some important information about what happens before, during and after health education. It focuses on interest in health occupations, the number of students taking and graduating from postsecondary health programs along with their socio-demographic characteristics and those of the faculty teaching these programs, the labour market experiences of recent graduates from these programs - including their mobility after graduation - as well as the ongoing participation of health workers in formal and informal training.

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Victoria is facing a shortage of skilled workers in several sectors, including healthcare, community services, engineering, teaching, digital and technology, construction and agriculture. University-level education will be required for many professionals in these sectors. Skills shortages are due to a range of factors, including low enrolments in courses relevant to priority employment areas, university graduates not possessing the skills required by industry and [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19. Over the next three years, university-qualified workers will make up around half of Victoria's employment growth. Labour market demand suggests that universities play a crucial role in developing the skilled workforce.

On 8 March 2022, the Legislative Assembly agreed to the following motion: That this House refers an inquiry into how Victorian universities can play a greater role in directing their own investment to support the pipeline of skilled workers needed for government priorities to ensure a growing economy to the Economy and Infrastructure Standing Committee for consideration and report. In particular, the Committee should consider: (1) future skills; (2) working towards a clean economy; and (3) regional skills analysis in health, agriculture and community services. In this report, the Committee makes recommendations to improve collaboration between universities, vocational education and training (VET) providers, industry and local communities to address skill imbalances (a term used by the Committee to cover both shortages and gaps).

Stronger collaboration between universities and industry, local communities and VET providers will contribute to the better alignment of learning outcomes with industry and community skills demands. Furthermore, work-integrated learning (WIL), like student placements and internships, can enhance graduate outcomes and work readiness. It also benefits industry by increasing workforce retention, increasing productivity and lessening the effects of skill shortages. Recommendations are presented under the following themes: (1) enhancing university collaboration with industry; (2) collaboration with vocational education providers and local communities; and (3) learning support and skills planning in priority employment areas.

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The National Retraining Scheme (NRS) was announced in 2017 to help adults to retrain as the economy changes. On 13 October 2020, it was announced that it would be integrated with the UK Government's new National Skills Fund (NSF). Further education (FE) providers have a key role in delivering learning and training. As such, the Department for Education (DfE) commissioned Learning and Work Institute (L&W) to undertake research to explore what needs to be in place to ensure providers can successfully engage with the NRS. Specifically, the research sought to establish a better understanding of: (1) FE providers' behaviour and how they make decisions about their learning offer; (2) challenges that may affect providers' engagement in, and delivery of the NRS, and how these can be overcome; and (3) how the DfE can influence the behaviour of FE providers to ensure the successful delivery of the NRS. This summary report presents the key findings of the research and highlights considerations for the DfE in relation to the future engagement with FE providers.

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This research aims to inform the forthcoming negotiations for the European Structural and Cohesion programs to run from 2014 to 2020. It looks at how the European Social Fund (ESF) might be used to promote economic growth and the creation of employment opportunities through supporting activity around self-employment, entrepreneurship and the providing of re-skilling opportunities. The research was based around Manchester and Newcastle to gain insights into how ESF delivery arrangements are working at the local level, and how they might best serve city-level priorities in the future. Although current ESF delivery is seen as contributing to addressing employability and skills concerns, a number of clear issues for consideration emerged from the study. For some, current provision is viewed as too generic, partly because it is delivered through large contracts rather than being more locally focused and oriented around meeting specific local needs.

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In March 2020, the [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 pandemic was occurring across the globe, and the experience internationally indicated that there would, in the absence of any other control measures, be a significant demand for ICU (Intensive Care Unit) beds to treat patients infected with the virus. The Australian Commonwealth Department of Health, having made a significant investment in ICU beds and ventilators, swiftly identified and acted on the need to upskill nurses to meet potential increased workforce demand due to COVID-19. Medcast and its subsidiary Critical Care Education Services were engaged to assist in building the workforce capacity to respond to COVID-19 through upskilling registered nurses via the rapid deployment of flexible, scalable, online learning on key critical care topics.

The SURGE Critical Care (Specialised Upskilling and [Registered Nurse] RN Growth through Education in Critical Care) education project was delivered between April and August 2020. The following are some of the key achievements of the project: 22,299 Registered Nurses enrolled in the courses; over 74 per cent of unique learners completed at least one course; there were 36,907 course enrolments over two courses; 400,000 hours of learning completed in Critical Care or High Dependency Nursing; there were enrolments in all states and territories, with the highest percentages of learners in Victoria (32.2 per cent), New South Wales (23.2 per cent) and Queensland (20.5 per cent); 806 Australian hospital participated; the majority of course participants were in metropolitan areas (65.1 per cent), regional centres (11.6 per cent) and small rural towns (10.2 per cent); and 20,000 target enrolments were achieved within 15 days.

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This report is the result of a review of America's job training programs that aimed to ensure that the programs shared the goal of providing workers with the skills they need in order to secure decent work. The report details actions that the government is taking as a result of the review and outlines further steps that can be taken to ensure future economic growth. Show less

The project aimed to: assist employers in the plastics and chemicals industries with the upskilling of nonprofessional level workers in the plastics and chemical industries to meet business needs; and support the user choice delivery of skill gap training to meet business needs. The project involved the development of a the model for upskilling existing workers in the plastics and chemicals industries, and program guidelines and the application process. Pilot companies were selected and the programs monitored and evaluated. The result was the evaluation of a model for upskilling existing workers in the plastics and chemicals industries. This report details: the methodology and rationale for the project; the sampling strategy utilised to identify the participating companies; an explanation of the skills assessment process; an explanation of how skills gap were addressed for each individual participant; a minimum of five case studies of the pilot program including background, outcome, what worked well and what didn't work well; a description and explanation of how case studies' outcomes can be measured; an evaluation of the pilot based on stakeholder feedback and outcomes from the pilot; and recommendation of a model to be used for the continuation of an upskilling program.

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Before the onset of the [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 pandemic, rapid advances in automation and artificial intelligence were often featured in discussions around the changing nature of work. The concern, which is still present today, centred around the possibility that machines and robots could perform certain tasks more efficiently than humans, possibly resulting in rapid job transformation and potential disruptions. At the same time, increased globalization and industrial shifts may have further altered the type of tasks performed in the workplace. Previous work found that while the workforce was moving away from jobs involving routine, manual tasks and moving toward those involving non-routine, cognitive tasks, changes were moderate and very steady between 1987 and 2018 (Frank et al. 2021). This pace could have allowed workers time to adjust to the slowly evolving realities of the changing workplace, either by retraining or through demographic forces (i.e., attrition of routine, manual jobs as older workers retire).

The COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns may have accelerated these trends for several reasons. On the supply (worker) side, the lockdowns created many economic and health concerns for affected workers, primarily those who had close contact with the public or co-workers. This may have encouraged some workers to seek employment with less human contact. On the demand (employer) side, some businesses may have sought to make their production and delivery processes more resilient to future lockdowns by investing in automation technology, while entire industries may have expanded or contracted to match new market conditions.

This article finds that some of the long-term trends in the nature of work present before the onset of the pandemic not only continued during the pandemic, but they also accelerated. In particular, the increase in the share of employed individuals in managerial, professional and technical occupations (non-routine, cognitive tasks) registered during the pandemic was higher than in the previous three decades. While the increases in non-routine, cognitive jobs registered during the pandemic were similar for men and women, the corresponding declines in other types of jobs were not.

For men, most of the increase in managerial, professional and technical occupations was accompanied by important declines in production, craft, repair and operative occupations (routine, manual tasks) and service occupations (non-routine, manual tasks). For women, most of the increase in managerial, professional and technical occupations was accompanied by a decline in service occupations. For men and women, the decline in service occupations was particularly notable, especially given that the share of service jobs actually increased moderately during the three decades prior to the pandemic. For men, the decline in production, craft, repair and operative occupations represented a modest acceleration of the long-term gradual decline established before the pandemic.

Finally, the increase in managerial, professional and technical occupations and the decline in service occupations were considerably more pronounced among younger workers (aged 25 to 34 years) compared with older workers (aged 45 to 54 years). Changing occupations may have required training in certain cases, and government supports were available to help displaced workers pursue this route if they chose.

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The National Skills Task Force has been established by the Secretary of State for Education and Employment to assist him in developing a National Skills Agenda. The Task Force was asked to provide advice on the nature, extent and pattern of skill needs and shortages, including associated recruitment difficulties, how these are likely to change and what can be done to ease such problems. This paper is one of a series that has been commissioned to review and evaluate existing literature in a number of skills-related areas.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical appraisal of the skills issues relating to the creative industries, including how different parts of the sector have attempted to identify and meet their skills needs, the roles of different parts of the education and training sector in supplying the skills needed, and any evidence relating to the perceived failure in the United Kingdom (UK) to translate good design into good business. In his introduction, Parker identifies important issues to be addressed in the creative industries sector, including the difficulties in defining both the sector and the skills, the problems in estimating the size of the sector using standard data sources, the skills needs of specific creative industries with different work practices, and problems associated with the evaluation and measurement of particular jobs within the sector. It is pointed out that definition of the creative industries by the the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is 'those activities which have their origin in individual creativity, skill and talent and have a potential for wealth and job creation through the generation and exploitation of intellectual property'. Some difficulties lie in the fact that many creative activities are subsumed within other industries and many non-creative occupations are employed within cultural or creative industries. Key characteristics are identified and an analysis is made on changing skills needs of the following sectors: multimedia; publishing; broadcasting, film and video; music; performing arts; and design. Cross-regional perspectives are addressed, the difficulties in predicting and identifying skill shortages and needs noted and consequent implications for policy identified. In his conclusion, Parker makes it clear that treating creative industries as an entity is important in matching skill needs and addressing difficulties across the sector and notes that the Labour Market and Skills Information (LMSI) focus of the Skills Task Force supports that contention.

Other research reports in this series are indexed from TD/TNC 62.633 to TD/TNC 62.643 and from TD/TNC 62.645 to TD/TNC 62.651. Show less

This report was commissioned as part of the joint Department for Education (DfE) and BIS FE workforce programme. It aims to investigate the impact of: maths and English enhancement programmes; special educational needs and disability (SEND) training grants; the golden hello scheme; subject knowledge enhancement (SKE) scheme; recruitment incentive grants; premium graduate scheme; and FE initial teacher education (ITE) bursaries.

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