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The New Zealand Government has asked the Commission to examine how New Zealand can maximise the opportunities and manage the risks of disruptive technological change and its impact on the future of work and the workforce. The Commission will provide an independent assessment of the scale and potential impacts of rapid technological change and its disruptive impact on the future of work and the workforce in New Zealand. The overriding aim is to harness changes to maximise the wellbeing of New Zealanders. The assessment is to provide material for future government policy development and other initiatives to prepare the country for a productive, sustainable, and socially-inclusive future, despite uncertainties around the impact of technology.

Two broad questions are to guide the assessment: What are the current and likely future impacts of technological change and disruption on the future of work, the workforce, labour markets, productivity and wellbeing? How can the Government better position New Zealand and New Zealanders to take advantage of innovation and technological change in terms of productivity, labour-market participation and the nature of work? The Commission has released this issues paper outlining the context and scope of the inquiry, key issues to be investigated and a list of questions to be addressed and evidence sought. The paper aims to assist individuals and organisations to participate in the inquiry.

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This article uses national-level data to examine the benefits for workers of better skill utilisation and the question of how opportunities to use skills in the workplace can be enhanced. Analysis of the New Zealand data in the 2005 and 2015 rounds of the International Social Survey Programme confirms that better skill utilisation is generally associated with a broad range of beneficial outcomes, including higher employee income, better opportunities for career advancement, higher job satisfaction, greater organisational commitment and lower turnover intentions. In addition, skill utilisation serves as a significant mediator between work autonomy and employee outcomes, particularly in the 2015 survey. As a general rule, better utilisation of employee skills will occur in organisational climates in which employee autonomy is encouraged.

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Based on an ecological view of teacher resilience, the paper investigates perceived difficulties and resources among vocational education and training (VET) teachers as a first step for investigating teachers' resilience. Given the substantial shortage of theoretical and empirical studies on this population, more research on resilience among VET teachers is necessary and relevant. In this exploratory qualitative study, interviews with VET teachers in Switzerland (n = 37) sought to identify the specific challenges faced by teachers, the resources to be addressed. As well as confirming the different critical challenges and protective factors emerging from the literature review, the results identify difficulties and resources specific to VET teachers in Switzerland. In terms of critical challenges at a macro-contextual level, teachers' low social recognition is emphasised. Moreover, exposure to curricular reforms generates stress and pressure related to the required standardisation of content and subject changes. At a micro-system level, we detected teachers' frustration in relation to students' low vocational motivation and maturity and specific emerging instructional challenges in vocational subject teaching. In terms of resources, teachers perceived the possibility of diversifying their professional role by alternating school and extracurricular activities as a supportive factor. The results provide a basis for more extensive quantitative study investigating relationship among adversities and resources and resilient strategies.

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In Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people score poorly on national mainstream indicators of wellbeing, with the lowest outcomes recorded in remote communities. As part of a 'shared space' collaboration between remote Aboriginal communities, government and scientists, the holistic Interplay Wellbeing Framework and accompanying survey were designed bringing together Aboriginal priorities of culture, empowerment and community with government priorities of education, employment and health. Quantitative survey data were collected from a cohort of 841 Aboriginal people aged 15-34 years, from four different Aboriginal communities. Aboriginal community researchers designed and administered the survey. Structural equation modelling was used to identify the strongest interrelating pathways within the framework. Optimal pathways from education to employment were explored with the concept of empowerment playing a key role. Here, education was defined by self-reported English literacy and numeracy and empowerment was defined as identity, self-efficacy and resilience. Empowerment had a strong positive impact on education (β = 0.38, p < .001) and strong correlation with employment (β = 0.19, p < .001). Education has a strong direct effect on employment (β = 0.40, p < .001). This suggests that education and employment strategies that foster and build on a sense of empowerment are mostly likely to succeed, providing guidance for policy and programs.

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In the context of increased international migration, the importance of education and training and a global governance of migration is widely acknowledged in academic and international development debates. This discussion paper looks at the relationship between migration and technical and vocational education and training (TVET), distinguishing between forced, labour and environmental migration. The discussion paper was prepared in the context of UNESCO-UNEVOC's Bridging Innovation and Learning in TVET (BILT) project. The BILT project seeks to support TVET institutions in addressing the transformation challenges facing TVET systems today, and to explore innovative approaches and new practices. The BILT Project is carried out in collaboration with the UNEVOC Network, coordinated by UNESCO-UNEVOC with the support of the German Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) and sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

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Focusing on private sector workplaces in Britain, we investigate whether the employment of older workers has implications for workplace performance. We find no significant association between changes in the proportion of older workers employed and changes in workplace performance. We find some evidence that workplace labour productivity falls where the proportion of 'middle-aged' workers falls, either due to a rise in the proportion of older or younger workers, but this association does not carry through to financial performance. Overall, the findings suggest that any reluctance on the part of employers to employ greater numbers of older workers may be misplaced.

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In Australia, the standard service offer to young people experiencing homelessness provides an immediate response to housing crisis, but struggles to deliver a pathway to sustainable independent living (AIHW 2018; Homelessness Taskforce 2008; Horn 2018 unpub.). Youth foyers address this gap by providing an integrated approach to tackling youth homelessness, combining affordable accommodation with education, training and employment opportunities and other support services. Education First Youth (EFY) Foyers expand upon the original Youth Foyer concept by prioritising education as key to a sustainable livelihood. As such, EFY Foyers are better understood as a form of supported student accommodation rather than a crisis housing response. The EFY Foyer evaluation finds that the model substantively improves participants' education, employment, housing, and health and wellbeing outcomes, and these improvements are largely sustained a year after exit.

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Each year we encourage young people aged 15-19 to 'speak up' about the issues that concern them through Australia's largest annual youth survey [available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 138.908]. For the first time, Mission Australia has analysed our Youth Survey data with a focus on young people with disability and how their experiences differ to young people without disability. This report offers a deeper understanding of what young people with disability in Australia are experiencing as it relates to their situations, aspirations, concerns, barriers and wellbeing. In 2019 over 25,000 young people responded to the Youth Survey and 1,623 reported living with disability.

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This report argues that the world now stands on the cusp of a technological revolution in artificial intelligence and robotics that may prove as transformative for economic growth and human potential as were electrification, mass production, and electronic telecommunications in their eras. New and emerging technologies will raise aggregate economic output and boost the wealth of nations. Will these developments enable people to attain higher living standards, better working conditions, greater economic security, and improved health and longevity? The answers to these questions are not predetermined. They depend upon the institutions, investments, and policies that we deploy to harness the opportunities and confront the challenges posed by this new era. How can we move beyond unhelpful prognostications about the supposed end of work and toward insights that will enable policymakers, businesses, and people to better navigate the disruptions that are coming and underway? What lessons should we take from previous epochs of rapid technological change? How is it different this time? And how can we strengthen institutions, make investments, and forge policies to ensure that the labor market of the 21st century enables workers to contribute and succeed?

The MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future was convened in the spring of 2018. Its goals are to understand the relationships between emerging technologies and work, and to explore strategies to enable a future of shared prosperity. To help answer these questions, and to provide a framework for the Task Force's efforts over the next year, this report examines several aspects of the interaction between work and technology.

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People 30 years or younger comprise a substantial proportion of Australia's working population. Young workers are more likely to be exposed to adverse psychosocial working conditions than their older counterparts. At the same time, young people are frequently going through change in a number of other areas of life, including relationship formation, living arrangements and financial circumstances. The combination of these life changes poses a risk for mental health problems and wellbeing, and may explain why adolescence and early adulthood is the peak age of onset for mental disorders.

The aim of this project was to assess the impact of entry into employment as a time when young people's wellbeing and resilience may be challenged. Specifically, we examined the difference in life satisfaction when a young person is 'not in the labour force' (NILF) (i.e., in school or other non-working activity, excluding being unemployed) compared to when they are in employment. In addition, we assessed the changes in life satisfaction from being NILF to being employed in a permanent, casual, fixed term job or self-employed as well as differences depending on the psychosocial quality of the work the young person enters. We hypothesised that that those entering into high quality employment would have less of a decline in life satisfaction than those employed in a job with poor psychosocial job quality. This study was complemented by a further descriptive analysis of the patterning of life satisfaction among young Australians according to key variables including the industry within which the young person was employed.

The data source for this study was the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) study and the sample included 11,537 young people (aged 30 years or younger). Results suggest that life satisfaction was similar across employment types and industries, and lower when people were unemployed. There was a significant association between life satisfaction and job quality. Multivariate results suggest a small but statistically significant decline in life satisfaction when young people were in employment compared to when they were 'NILF'. Our results also suggest a significant decline in life satisfaction when young people were employed in jobs with poor psychosocial working conditions.

These results suggest younger workers going into the labour market may experience a small decline in life satisfaction and wellbeing, unless they are entering into a job characterised by high psychosocial work qualities. This suggests that promoting high quality psychosocial work for younger workers will protect and promote their wellbeing, and may reduce the likelihood of later mental health problems, particularly if this sets up the young person for a working life characterised by good psychosocial quality jobs.

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