Occupational Restructuring Challenges Competencies (Polkuja työhön)

Public description of the goals at the beginning of the project

Global trends, notably technological change and offshoring, are reshaping occupational structures. The competence-related consequences of occupational restructuring are politically highly relevant, but not well understood. Our research will unveil the consequences for school choices, educational qualifications and ICT skill requirement of young people. It will explore the changes needed in support of skill acquisition and renewal inside and outside working life: in general adult education, in active labour market policies, as well as in institutional arrangements like vocational rehabilitation.

However, it is not enough to produce empirical evidence on how occupational restructuring challenges present and future skill requirements in working life. We also intend to communicate our findings to key stakeholders to ensure that the actors in charge of reshaping Finnish working life are provided with accessible and accurate evidence, including concrete solutions, for decision-making.

Public description of the results at the end of the project

Occupational restructuring affects the competencies demanded in working life. The Polkuja työhön project highlights the challenges of creating, developing and renewing competencies, and suggests how to cope with them.

We have produced new knowledge on educational outcomes of young age cohorts, the level and development needs of pupil’s digital skills, and measures to help young dropouts. We have explored young people’s post-primary educational choices and tracks and assessed the impact on their working life prospects. We have evaluated the effects of adult education and its various modes on participants’ possibilities to stay employed and to return to working life. We have identified stumbling blocks hampering the move into working life by immigrants with a weak labour market position, and also provided solutions for smoothing them out.

The most central outcomes of the project have been summed up in the publication Towards employment (Työtä kohti, in Finnish only). It also contains proposals for action, which offer valuable basic knowledge for different stakeholders, as well as for the implementation of Prime Minister Antti Rinne’s government platform.