3 SKILLS MISMATCHES AND SKILLS DEVELOPMENT

3.1 High-level skills gaps in Europe

21.Assessing the extent to which higher education systems equip students with the knowledge, skills and competences they need is complex. In the schools sector, national examinations in many countries and international assessment exercises such as the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) exercise make it possible to compare certain aspects of students' skills levels and thus the extent to which schools are effective in helping them to acquire desired learning outcomes. No equivalent national or international skills assessment exercises currently exist at higher education level, even if projects are being developed to fill this gap in Europe and elsewhere. As a result, our assessment of whether students are actually leaving systems with the right skills has to be based on a range of other indicators, including evidence from the labour market (employment trends and feedback from graduates and employers) and data from more general assessments of adult skills.

22.The evidence on how well higher education is currently performing in terms of equipping graduates with skills is mixed. One of the only comparative surveys of employers in the EU in recent times found that a large majority (89%) of employers who had recruited higher education graduates in the past five years agreed that these graduates 'had the skills required to work in their company', albeit with significant variation between Member States. In contrast, in their responses to the online public consultation undertaken in preparation for the new Commission Communication on higher education, 71% of students or recent graduates and 61% of higher education institution employees disagreed with the statement that "there is a good match between the supply of higher education graduates and the knowledge and skills the economy needs".

23.Underlying these kinds of general statements are two main concerns: shortages of tertiary graduates in specific fields of knowledge and a more general concern about the broad set of competencies all graduates need and whether or not higher education is helping them acquire these. A recent JRC CRELL report analyses the evolution of skills over the lifetime of individuals and across generations for a number of EU countries, using data from PIAAC and its predecessor, IALS. The report finds that literacy skills decline with age after the end of formal education; in several countries, more recent birth cohorts exhibit lower levels of literacy than previous generations. This raises concerns about a possible decline in the effectiveness of education systems in providing younger generations with an adequate level of skills.

Shortages in particular professional sectors…

24.Based on analysis of quantitative and qualitative evidence from national labour markets, including skills need forecasts, CEDEFOP's Skills Panorama has identified 'shortage occupations' in each EU Member State. Across the EU, the most frequently occurring shortages are in professional and associate professional occupations at high skills levels and for which a tertiary qualification is generally required. The top five are ICT professionals; medical doctors; 'science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professionals'; nurses and midwives; and teachers (see Figure 3.1).

25.For the areas of ICT and STEM, the analysis undertaken for the Skills Panorama finds that shortages are driven by a combination of growing demand, too few young people enrolling to study STEM (including ICT) subjects in higher education and a particular under-representation of women in these fields (see below). Moreover, in some countries and fields, there is evidence that STEM graduates go on to work in 'non-STEM' occupations, where they find better working conditions. The shortages in the medical professions are frequently linked to increased demand from an ageing society, restrictions on the numbers of study places and, in some countries, emigration of trained medical professionals. In teaching, the shortages are most often linked to an aging teaching workforce (meaning retirees need to be replaced) and, in some part of the EU, unattractive working conditions.

26.The occupational fields where the largest shortages exist correspond to a large extent to fields of study where there are the largest gender imbalances in populations graduating. As shown in Figure 3.2, for the EU as a whole, over 70% of tertiary graduates in the broad field of 'engineering, manufacturing and construction' in 2014 were men. The proportion for 'information and communication technologies' was over 80%. In contrast, 74% of graduates in the fields of 'health and welfare' (including doctors and nurses) and 80% of graduates in education (including teachers) were women. The relative under-representation of one gender in these fields is an additional factor in the overall picture of supply and demand.

Figure 3.2: Distribution of tertiary graduates by field and sex, EU-28, 2014 (%)

Source: Eurostat (educ_uoe_grad02) No data for NL. No data for IT for Engineering, manufacturing and construction and Natural sciences, mathematics and statistics

27.Addressing these kinds of imbalances and shortages in high-level occupational skills is not, and cannot be, the sole responsibility of higher education systems. Other sectors of education and training, employers and government all have their role to play in helping to increase the flow of students into shortage study fields and creating attractive working environments for graduates. Higher education systems do need to play their part in ensuring adequate provision of places for education in shortages fields, developing programmes which develop a broad range of subject-specific and generic skills and helping to tackle the gender stereotypes associated with key shortage occupations.

…and growing demand for transversal skills.

28.The increasing complexity of many high-skill jobs is one of the factors behind an increasing focus on the importance of generic, 'soft' or transversal skills in discussion of skills needs. Technological change has to date had most impact on routine tasks that are easily programmable and interactions that do not require person-to-person interaction. Person-to-person services and occupations relying more on creativity, context adaptability, task discretion, social skills and tacit cognitive capacities have been – and are likely to remain - less affected.

29.Several surveys of employers point to increasing demand for these kinds of attributes. The 2014 European Skills and Jobs Survey , for example, highlighted the increased complexity of jobs, particularly at the top of the occupational scale, with 80% of managers and over 70% of professionals and associate professionals reporting a rising variety of tasks in their jobs. The same survey identified advanced literacy, learning, adaptability, persuasion and ICT skills are the skills for which demand is increasing most.

Figure 3.3: Share of jobs with rising variety of tasks by occupation (2014)