Do you know what is the unemployment rate in Algeria?
Or how many young people are not in education, training or employment in Georgia?
Now you can find out!
Check the latest data from ETF partner countries here:
Background:
The Key Indicators on Education, Skills and Employment (KIESE) are a collection of statistics that are part of a broader set of measures proposed by the ETF to enable an assessment of developments in the field of human capital in the partner countries. The indicators are compiled annually for all ETF partner countries, providing an overview of their vocational education and training systems, skills and labour market outcomes.
They provide an essential, though partial, overview on trends and developments in the EU neighbourhood countries, and one which needs to be read in conjunction with the countries’ own strategies, process developments and other factors that can influence human capital development and VET policies. As some of the indicators are also EU2020 targets for education and employment, they also allow the ETF partner countries to reference themselves against the European Union.
One important objective of KIESE is to provide an overview of trends and developments in the ETF partner countries, and also to raise awareness on the use of indicators to drive the policy cycle. However, comprehensive analysis of VET and skills requires more detailed data and other information, to which KIESE are an important but not an exhaustive contribution.
Main findings from the 2019 edition:
- In some countries, the human capital potential remain underused. Unemployment, especially for youths, remain high, leading to skills depletion and depreciation. Youth unemployment remained very high in 2018, affecting about half of young people in Kosovo*, North Macedonia, Jordan or Palestine**, and about one in three in several other countries, including Albania, Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Montenegro and Serbia (the EU average is 15%). Youth unemployment is also seen to be increasingly linked to the existence of various types of skills mismatch and most countries have identified skills imbalances in the labour market as one reason for the persistence of high levels of youth unemployment. In 2018, the ETF started to develop indicators to measure the incidence, extent and nature of the skills mismatch.
- One of the main challenges in the ETF partner countries is tackling underachievement in key competences. PISA 2018 results show high levels of underachievement for more than half of the ETF partner countries; these are students failing to complete even simple tasks in the tested domains (ie reading, mathematics and science), providing a measure of the youth population most at risk through a lack of foundation skills. Data shows that around three out of four students aged 15 in countries such as Kosovo* or Morocco, about two-thirds of students in Azerbaijan (Baku), Georgia, Kazakhstan or Lebanon and about half of the students in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, Montenegro and North Macedonia, can be considered underachievers. At the other end of scale, only about a quarter of students aged 15 are underachievers in Belarus, Turkey or Ukraine. When analysing the incidence of low achievement among students aged 15, it is worth noting that in most countries, this is the typical age for entering VET; thus, students entering VET are at higher risk as a result of a lack of foundation skills.
- Upskilling through training remains rather limited and adults are often unlikely to participate in training with negative consequences for their careers. In countries for which data exists, participation ranges from 1% in Albania to around 6% in Turkey and 10% in Israel (the EU average is 11%). In most countries, men are more likely than women to attend continuing training. Furthermore, young adults have more training opportunities than older workers do and better-educated adults are more likely to receive training. Many adults who have no further opportunity to participate in training are trapped in low-skill jobs, with negative consequences for their careers. Increasing access to training should not be pursued in purely quantitative terms: the content and focus of skills should also match future labour market contexts.
- Youth transition remains problematic in most countries, with persistently high numbers who are not in employment, education or training (NEETs). In 2018, one in three young people in Algeria, Kosovo* and Palestine** and one in four young people in most of the other partner countries for which there is data available (including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Egypt, Georgia, North Macedonia and Turkey) were classified as NEETs. Young girls are typically over-represented in this group, and in some countries, the proportion of young girls who are NEETs is close to 40%. NEETs are at higher risk of being socially and economically excluded and so are more likely to become vulnerable in the long term.
- Vocational programmes can be effective in developing skills and ensuring a smooth and successful transition to the labour market. In nearly all countries for which there is data available, employment rates tend to be higher among young adults who graduated from vocational training than among those who pursued an upper secondary general programme as their highest level of educational attainment. In 2018, around half of recent graduates from VET programmes (ISCED 3–4 combined) in Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey were employed, and there has been good progress over recent years. This is positive, especially in countries such as Montenegro and Serbia, where large proportions of upper secondary students follow vocational programmes. It shows that VET can be successful in equipping young adults with the skills demanded in the labour market, ensuring a smooth transition and a better integration into the world of work.
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