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To stimulate economic advancement, low- and middle-income countries need well-educated and trained workforces to fill the types of skilled jobs that drive economic growth. Improving educational quality and attainment and providing better training are all rightly put forth as policy recommendations to leverage economic growth and job creation. However, new findings based on large scale surveys of adult skills from the World Bank Group's STEP (Skills toward Employment and Productivity) Skills Measurement Program suggest that many workers are overqualified for their current jobs (based on the education those jobs require). The results of this study suggest that countries may not reap as much benefit from their investments in quality education and training if weak job creation leaves workers' skills underutilized. Most of the literature on mismatch focuses on higher-income countries and rates of over-education among college graduates.

This publication uses new STEP Skills Survey data from 12 low- and middle-income countries, representing a range of economic and educational and training climates, to better understand the scope and patterns of education and skills mismatch. STEP collects information not only on workers' level of education and employment status, but also on the types, frequency, and durations of tasks they carry out at their jobs as well as some of the cognitive skills they use. The study also explores additional factors such as gender, health, career stage, and participation in the informal labor sector that may help explain the degree of mismatch rates. The study's findings indicate that over-education is common in low and middle income countries with both lower and higher rates of educational attainment. There is also evidence that over-educated tertiary workers do not use all of their skills, potentially wasting valuable human capital and educational resources. The authors suggest that job growth must go hand-in-hand with investments in education and training.

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Competence-based training (CBT) is evolving as a leading approach to produce a world-class, multi-skilled and adaptable workforce. This approach is expected to reduce existing skills gaps that industries face. South Asia, which is estimated to supply almost 40 per cent of the global labor in the next two to three decades, has [had] mixed experiences with CBT. This chapter takes stock of CBT experiences in South Asia and examines the important role that industry plays in formulating occupational standards and [National Qualifications Framework] NQFs in partnership with public and private institutions. This includes developing and implementing regulations and quality assurance systems, as well as ensuring effective coordination and public-private partnership in implementing CBT.

South Asia's limited window for tapping on the demographic dividend makes it crucial to develop a quality-assured and globally recognized skills training system that can help increase exports, remittances, industry competitiveness, and eventually high productivity that leads to higher wages of the population and economic growth of the countries. In conclusion, South Asia has the potential to benefit from CBT so long as its countries are able to adopt and implement enabling policies, maintain synergy among key players (e.g., government, private sector including industries and employers), and ensure standards. In doing this, South Asia can benefit tremendously by addressing key challenges in skills development such as rapid technological changes, high-quality training of trainers in a large scale, rapidly changing labor market needs, increasing labor mobility to move up the value chain, and the urgent need to recognize prior learning.

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South Asia is in the midst of a demographic transition. For the next three decades, the growth of the region's working age population will far outpace the growth of dependents. Close to one million individuals will enter the workforce every month. This large, economically active population can increase the region's capacity to save and make crucial investments in physical capital, job training, and technological advancement. But for South Asia to realize these dividends, it must ensure that its working-age population is productively employed. As one of the most prominent labor-intensive industries in developing countries, apparel manufacturing is a prime contender.

With around 4.7 million workers in the formal sector and another estimated 20.3 million informally employed (combined with textiles), apparel already constitutes close to 40 per cent of manufacturing employment. And given that much of apparel production continues to be labor-intensive, the potential to create more and better jobs is immense. There is a huge window of opportunity now for South Asia, given that China, the dominant producer for the last 10 years, has started to cede some ground due to higher wages. But the region faces strong competition from East Asia - with Cambodia, Indonesia, and Vietnam already pulling ahead. Plus the sector suffers from production inefficiencies and policy bottlenecks that have prevented it from achieving its potential.

Against this backdrop, this report hopes to inform the debate by measuring the employment gains that the four most populous countries in South Asia - Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka (hereafter 'SAR countries') - can expect in this new environment of increased competition and scrutiny. Its main message is that it is important for South Asian economies to remove existing impediments and facilitate growth in apparel to capture more production and create more employment as wages rise in China. The successful manufacturers will be those who can supply a wide range of quality products to buyers rapidly and reliably - not just offer low costs.

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Sri Lanka is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. The efficiency of the higher education system is vital for maintaining Sri Lanka's momentum and for its move to the next stage of development. In order to maximize the full development potential of the higher education system, strategic interventions will be needed at both the national, such as creation of appropriate economic and institutional regimes, as well as an efficient national policy for fostering innovation, and university levels. University-level interventions would include capacity building, improvements in the learning environment, exposure of students to the world of work, and promoting international best practices. This publication is part of a series of six country reports on technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and higher education in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.

The report presents current arrangements and initiatives in Sri Lanka's skills development strategies. These are complemented by critical analyses to determine key issues, challenges, and opportunities for innovative strategies toward global competitiveness, increased productivity, and inclusive growth. It emphasizes making skills training more relevant, efficient, and responsive to emerging domestic and international labor markets.

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This paper examines the extent to which various factors explain talent misallocation in the form of qualification mismatches across six urban developing Asian economies using the World Bank's Skills towards Employability and Productivity (STEP) Skills Measurement Survey. The paper empirically tests the role of search frictions in driving qualification mismatches in the labor market. Using new data from several low-income economies in urban Asia, the authors find that overeducation in less developed labor markets are more pervasive than in more developed economies.

The STEP Skills Measurement Program collects data on skills in low- and middle-income country contexts. This includes information on educational attainment, job characteristics, and socioeconomic background. The samples per country comprise approximately 3,000 adults between the age of 15 and 64. In this paper, the focus is on a subset of countries for which there is data available: Armenia, the People's Republic of China (PRC) (Yunnan), Georgia, the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), Sri Lanka, and Viet Nam. The years of data collection are 2012 for the PRC (Yunnan), the Lao PDR, Sri Lanka, and Viet Nam, and 2013 for Armenia and Georgia.

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This book, based on original comparative research and extensive fieldwork, highlights the commonalities and diversity of challenges facing women across Asia in gaining access to more and better jobs. Findings show that women have contributed significantly to economic growth across the region yet social norms and economic factors limit their levels of participation. The book calls for a comprehensive approach to improve opportunities for women's participation in the labour market as well as for the freedom to engage in paid employment. The argument is that this will, in turn, contribute to a more inclusive growth process. It addresses important challenges faced by women workers and provides policy options for governments to promote decent work opportunities for women across social strata.

Edited excerpts from publication.

The chapters are as follows: Introduction / Sukti Dasgupta and Sher Singh Verick (pages 1-21); Women labour force participation in Asia: trends and issues / Fernanda Barcia de Mattos and Ruchika Chaudhary (pages 23-48); At the threshold of economic empowerment: women, work and gender regimes in Asia / Govind Kelkar (pages 49-73); Decline of women's labour force participation in India: explaining the puzzling trend / Steven Kapsos, Andrea Silberman and Evangelia Bourmpoula (pages 75-101); Declining female employment in India: insights from Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh / Partha Saha, Sher Singh Verick, Santosh Mehrotra and Sharmistha Sinha (pages 103-121); Women's employment in Bangladesh: beyond garments / Rushidan Islam Rahman and Rizwanul Islam (pages 123-153); Factors holding women back from market work in Sri Lanka: to work or not to work? / Ramani Gunatilaka (pages 155-186); The life-cycle of women in the labour market in Cambodia: subsistence versus wage employment / Kang Chandararot and Liv Dannet (pages 187-222); Women's employment in Indonesia: gaining more from structural transformation / Makiko Matsumoto (pages 223-258); Women and men in China's labour market: is inequality on the rise? / Sukti Dasgupta, Makiko Matsumoto and Cuntao Xia (pages 259-293); Mapping out a way forward: can policies make a difference? / Sukti Dasgupta and Sher Singh Verick (pages 295-302). Show less

Technical and vocational education in Sri Lanka has become a crucial sector and technical teacher training is the most important area. The University of Vocational Technology has planned to conduct technical training programs for teachers to develop skills and competencies in technical training and education. The research objective is to identify the effect of quality of teachers' training programs on teaching and learning process outcomes in technical colleges and vocational training centers in Sri Lanka. A formal survey and in-depth interviews were conducted to collect data. The sample size for the survey was selected from 2014 and 2015 batches. The total number of teachers participating in the program was 200 teachers and 35 teachers were selected for the survey. For in-depth interviews, two course coordinators were selected.

The study found that there is a strong impact of quality of training programs on teaching and learning process outcomes. It highlighted that the following aspects had an effect on total learning outcomes: learning materials used during the training period; quality of teaching curriculum; quality of resource persons and their presence; quality of assessment methods and materials; quality of physical facilities and arrangements; and mode of delivery. It is recommended that management consider these findings to improve the quality of teachers training programs.

Edited excerpts from publication. Show less

The majority of enterprises in many developing countries have no paid workers. This paper reports on a field experiment conducted in Sri Lanka that provided wage subsidies to randomly chosen microenterprises to test whether hiring additional labor would benefit such firms. In the presence of labor market frictions, a short-term subsidy could have a lasting impact on firm employment. Using 12 rounds of surveys to track dynamics four years after the end of the subsidy, the study finds that firms increased employment during the subsidy period, but there was no lasting impact on employment, profitability, or sales. Two supplementary interventions and treatment heterogeneity suggest the lack of impact is not due to complementarities with capital or management skills, and detailed survey data help rule out a number of theoretical mechanisms that could result in sub-optimally low employment. The study concludes that the urban labor market facing microenterprises does not have large frictions that would prevent own-account workers from becoming employers.

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This report features a descriptive analysis of the data collected during the first two waves of the Skills Towards Employment and Productivity (STEP) Employer Surveys. Key objectives of the snapshot are (1) to explain the motivation and relevance behind the implementation of employer skills surveys; and (2) to highlight some of the observed cross-country patterns from six participating countries, namely, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and China (Yunnan Province). The snapshot provides information on how employers view jobs mismatch and how they identify and value worker skills sets. In addition, it includes insights from innovative firms and examples of training provisions. A section on survey methodology has also been included as an annex.

Edited abstract from publisher's website. Show less

Disasters in Bangladesh and protests elsewhere have created an intense debate about the value, particularly to women, of apparel employment in developing countries. This paper focuses on how the forces of globalization, specifically the Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA), have affected women's wages in the apparel sector in developing countries. The paper uses household and labor force surveys from Cambodia and Sri Lanka to estimate both apparel wage premiums relative to other industries and the male-female wage gap before and after the end of the MFA. The approach builds on new models that apply traditional trade theory (e.g., the Heckscher-Ohlin and Stolper-Samuelson theorems) to analyze the effect of globalization on gender-based earnings.

The authors find large positive wage premiums and a closing of the male-female wage gap during the MFA period, but smaller premiums and a widening wage gap after the end of the MFA. The results suggest that the benefits of apparel exports for women in developing countries remain significant post-MFA. They also model an approach for studying the effects of globalization that differentiates males and females as separate factors. This may be a fruitful alternative to discrimination models or those that analyze the effects of globalization on women in terms of skill. Further research is necessary to identify the potential development effects of post-MFA apparel employment and to thoroughly compare the benefits documented in this paper with the costs that may come with apparel jobs.

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