Hiring people with a higher-level education is an increasingly urgent priority for business. This is because our economy and the world of work is changing, making more flexible and new routes to higher-level education more important than ever. The Confederation of British Industry's (CBI) most recent education and skills survey found as a result…

There is increasingly scholarship on gender and migration, yet the international migration of highly skilled women is still somewhat under-researched. This article focuses on this neglected area in the context of Australia's discretionary inward migration policies to solve skills shortages. The article draws on empirical research using a…

Immigrants often are unable to practice their professions in new countries. Interviews in 1992 and 1995 with 910 Russian immigrants to Israel showed that participation in government-sponsored retraining helped improve occupational status and earnings, especially for women. Those with lower occupational status also benefitted subjectively from…

The purposes of this report are to provide: (1) an overview of the Wood County, Wisconsin Project methodology, including a description of the experimental and control areas, the research design, and the instrumentation used to assess the impact of services; and (2) a description of the client populations in terms of selected pre-rehabilitation…

Two trade union organizations in New York City have begun a workplace literacy program in response to the needs of adult workers, especially immigrants, for literacy, job skills upgrading, and problem-solving skills. Four case studies tailored to specific needs and workplace settings illustrate the shift in focus from worker literacy to workplace…

In 1989, the Industrial Research and Development Advisory Committee (IRDAC) of the European Community established a Working Party on education and training issues relevant to industry. A subgroup on skill shortages considered the issue from the European and macro-economic point of view. It examined such skills shortages issues as demographic…

The Treuhandanstalt was given the task of privatizing former German Democratic Republic-owned enterprises and restructuring them so that they could survive and function in a market economy. The enormity of this task entailed personnel reductions as high as 10-20% in many cases and many qualitative changes, including the following: alterations to…

It has been proposed that the same type of aptitude and ability tests required for initial job entry be used to indicate whether an individual can continue to perform effectively in that job. A review of the nature of such tests indicates that they would be inappropriate for use in retirement decisions. A proficiency test of the kind used at the…

Management should elevate the status of the training function and revise the priorities assigned to it. The process of total and continuous training can develop in employees a sense of security, independence and self-confidence, a conceptual view, multiple skills, and a readiness to make a contribution to the organization. Administrative,…

This study was undertaken to describe any special barriers to the transfer of engineers from defense to commercial work, and to evaluate retraining and reorientation techniques that might help ease the transfer. Interviews and questionnaires were used to obtain data from about 2,100 engineers and 100 managers in 14 industries. Characteristics,…

The combined effort to first orient, and then place, 185 unemployed aerospace professionals into state and local government jobs is analyzed. Twelve months after placement activities commenced, 80% of the program participants are reported as now employed, with 70% employed in State/local jurisdictions. Previous decision making experience by the…

This is a structured interview study of a 20% random sample consisting of 148 clients interviewed a year after leaving a rehabilitation center vocational program. Employment outcome is related to age, marital status, impairments, education, race, social class, program completion, attendance and punctuality. Clients' occupational distribution in…

These five research reviews should be useful to educators concerned with developing and improving vocational education programs. Reviews include: (1) Four longitudinal studies of labor market experience conducted by The Ohio State University Center for Human Resource Research, concerning young men 14-24, young women 14-24, men 45-59, and women…

Three forces are combining to mandate a more highly skilled work force: (1) technological advancement, (2) job growth centered on high-skill occupations, and (3) new work organizational strategies. As many as 50 million workers, many of them minorities and immigrants, may have to be trained or retrained in the next 12 years. (CH)

Implications for Maine's vocational technical institutes of changes in the pulp and paper industry are examined in this study designed to help vocational educators realize the importance of keeping current with the needs of employers in relevant labor markets. Information used was gathered from relevant literature and from indepth interviews with…