Training For Employability
By: Maria Angelica Ducci, International Labour Organisation

Today, society is undergoing a transformation of unprecedented magnitude and speed, affecting all spheres of economic and social life. Growing globalisation and rapid technological change, particularly in information and communications, has created a highly competitive international market.

"Employability" has emerged as the new buzz-word to counteract job anxiety. Is it just a palliative to placate and divert the plea for more and better jobs? Or is it effectively the lever for restoring full employment and ensuring equity? The answers depend on the approach taken to boost employability and on the set of economic, social and labour policies and practices that will allow it to materialise into real employment opportunities.

Employability can be defined as the increased opportunity and capability for constructing the productive skills and competencies that will allow people to find, create, keep, enrich and change jobs, and to obtain fair personal, economic, social and professional rewards in return. For each individual, it means enhanced possibilities of successful transitions throughout working lives; for enterprises it means having the qualified and committed workforce they require to remain competitive, grow and be profitable. In short, employability urges individuals, enterprises and government and society at large to value people and invest quantitatively and qualitatively, in the training, development and productive utilisation of their human potential.

Individuals are the main architects of achieving their own competencies. Nevertheless, individuals will only invest in their own training according to labour market signals and incentives. Therefore individuals need access to a diversified supply of training, information and guidance services, financial support, recognition of skills' value and certification of competencies formally and informally, and most crucial, good prospects of opportunities and income.

But current trends, including industrial restructuring, labour market deregulation and changing skills needs, are eroding the stability and quality of jobs. Hence training becomes decisive in upgrading skills or equipping them for mobility into another situation. No longer can learning be a one-time event at the start of working life, but rather a continuous lifelong process. The need for lifelong training dramatically increases and diversifies the demand for training. This, in turn, requires the urgent reform of national training systems. Three main issues are at stake: devising flexible and continuous training systems to meet the changing labour market requirements; ensuring equitable access to training opportunities, and mobilising greater investments in education and training.

The competencies now required in the world of work call for a blend of general knowledge and techno-professional skills, rooted in a sound foundation of aptitudes, attitudes and values. Vocational education and initial training should focus on "core" skills and competencies that facilitate access to a broad family of occupations and further trainability by enterprises. These "core" competencies consist of many skills: technical, information technology, social and inter-personal, intellectual, and entrepreneurial.

However, not all sectors of society have access to training resources, but they should. Creating an underclass of the socially excluded or peripheral persons will surely threaten economic, social and political stability, and hamper a healthy business environment. Small enterprises must be granted preferential support, including services through small/large enterprise linkages and through employers' organisations and enterprises' associations. However, training alone cannot overcome massive unemployment and wage decline. In order to boost employability and equitable opportunities for all, training must become part and parcel of a comprehensive set of broader measures gearing to create and expand employment and improve its quality.

Training must be seen as an investment rather than as a mere expenditure, and its positive effects need to be more widely publicised. Training efficiency calls for stimulating the best possible use of all technical, physical, and financial resources available, and this presupposes the effective marketing of training. Training systems should be demand-driven and based on a strong interaction between education, training and the real world of work. Most important is the partnership -- forging complementary roles for government, educational institutions and the private sector in pre-employment and recurrent training. Governments have to provide the enabling environment and the correct incentives for enterprises to pick up the gauntlet-- to reach beyond their immediate needs.

In short, the goal is to bring about the knowledge society of the future -- a culture of learning, involving government, enterprises, individuals and other stakeholders. The value of competence, the pride of learning and the audacity of enterprises to blaze the trails need to be rooted and appreciated in all sectors of society.