Achieving transparency in skills markets.

Investments in education and training are an essential component of any strategy for promoting employment and social integration.

However, major difficulties arise when proceeding to the identification and specification of the underlying relationships and benchmarking policy performance vis-à-vis concrete and credible targets.

How do we measure "education and training"? What is their actual impact on jobs and skills? How do we account for the outcome of training, including informal training? What is the stock of human capital of a country? How do policy programmes affect employability and the quality of the work force?

This book reviews the major issues of measurement affecting the operation of labour and skill markets, and analyses the impact of measurement, or poor measurement and mismeasurement, on the effectiveness of matching skills to jobs, and jobs to workers.

Measurement requirements are analysed in relation to conceptual gaps, the quality of the available sources of data, the linkages between economic and education/training statistics, the existence of national and international standards in terms of statistical concepts definitions and classifications.

The aim of the book is to focus on the current status of education and training statistics, the data requirements of the different players, in particular policy makers, and the relationship with employment policies and practises. It concludes with suggestions for strengthening statistical infrastructures in education and training and promoting research and data collection strategies.

Contrasting the considerable, and growing, opacity of labour and skill markets requires a concerted effort at the national and international level for improving measurement and data quality on knowledge skills and abilities.

Paolo Garonna , is Director of the Statistical Division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe in Geneva. He was Director of National Statistical Office in Italy (1992-1999), Deputy Director for Education, Employment and Social Policy at OECD, and professor of Applied Economics at the University of Padova.

Paolo Reboani , currently senior researcher at ISAE in Rome, has intertwined his activity of research on labour market and industrial relations with a range of appointments as economic adviser to the Italian Governament.

Gyorgy Sziraczki Head of the Target Groups Unit of the InFocus Programme on Skills, Knowledge and Employability at the international Labour Office in Geneva. He has extensive research experience in the areas of industrial relations, human resources development and labour market policies.