I am delighted to have been asked to write the foreword to this remarkable report by OECD Education and Skills. Thanks are due to the OECD team and Amazon for their support. The report summarises the largest and most detailed study ever of teenagers’ career aspirations and how they compare to labour market needs and skills shortages. What makes it particularly notable is that it compares data since 2000, and now from some 80 countries.
It is most encouraging to see that the educational ambitions of students have increased over the last two decades. This reflects the efforts by teachers and schools, supported by governments, employers and charities to help young people achieve their potential. It is something which should be acknowledged and celebrated.
However, the report shows that in some areas little has changed, and indeed things have got worse:
A young person’s socio-economic background plays a bigger role in determining their educational ambition than their academic ability
The job expectations of students have changed little since the start of the century and now bear little relation to actual patterns of labour market demand
Most jobs young people want remain out of reach: their career choices are narrowing and increasingly focused on a limited number of traditional, high status jobs
Students have never been so unsure about their career prospects - many exhibit great anxiety, uncertainty and confusion about the state of their career preparation
The percentage of students looking to work in sectors highlighted by the OECD in 2000 as being of particular strategic importance and suffering from skills shortages has remained largely unchanged
The majority of young people are not getting enough career development opportunities which connect them with people in work and workplaces and help them understand the opportunities open to them.
The impact of the mismatch between the careers young people aspire to and the reality of the labour market revealed in this paper should be of huge concern to all countries. The economic and social costs are enormous - employers not being able to find the future workforce they need, especially in growth areas; and large numbers of young people not fulfilling their potential, becoming NEET and all the social problems that result.
The last 20 years has seen the creation of a plethora of new jobs and roles, with job titles that are often near impossible to decode and understand. At the same time the amount of information about careers and jobs has dramatically increased. This in theory should lead to young people seeking a wider range of jobs but the opposite is true - with them focusing on a limited number of traditional roles. Perhaps the amount of choice is so overwhelming that they stick to the familiar and what they see around them - their family, neighbours and in the local area.
This is why helping young people to understand the job opportunities and career routes open to them is so important, but this paper shows that young people are not getting enough help. A key element of this careers’ development is employer engagement which is that rare thing in public policy - an initiative where everybody can win. Young people are seen in research studies to gain better jobs, employers find it easier to recruit and societies gain from lower unemployment. Much more needs to be done to connect students with people in work and workplaces who are best placed to broaden and deepen their understanding of jobs and careers and their future prospects.
There are some simple actions that could be taken that would significantly address the problems the report highlights. What a difference it makes if employers simply encourage their employees to volunteer an hour a year to chat to children and young people about their job and opportunities in the sector. Many employers, from multinationals to small enterprises have recognised the need and engage with schools. But others have yet to engage - it needs to be really easy for them to do, and schools themselves need to see the value. As we look ahead to a world of work which is being rapidly (and unpredictably) changed by technology, employer engagement becomes more important in providing the very latest insights into the reality of jobs. A good example which exemplifies how technology can bridge this gap between students and the modern workplace is Amazon's Career Tours. Through interactive virtual experiences, students engage with content and learn from employee insights across various tech roles at Amazon. Bringing the workplace directly into classrooms helps decode the complexity of modern jobs and expands students' awareness of opportunities in high-demand sectors like technology and gain into careers they might never have considered.
The Education and Employers charity facilitates a coalition between the two worlds. It harnesses technological innovation to connect them in a very effective and efficient way. Our Inspiring the Future platform, which has been replicated in a number of countries makes it really easy for schools and employers to connect. It gets employers and their employees to volunteer from as little as an hour. By doing so via the Inspiring the Future platform it means schools can easily find them and invite them to chat to young people either in person or virtually. The combination of in- person and interactive virtual chats has the potential to revolutionise how children and young people see the opportunities open to them - giving them the chance to meet a diverse range of people doing different jobs, regardless of their geographic or socioeconomic background or family connections. At the same time, it enables employers - government, private, and third sector - to show young people the jobs and opportunities in their sectors, many of which young people will have very little awareness.
Now is the time for action to guarantee that our young people fully understand the opportunities open to them and that we have the future workforce we need to ensure a vibrant and prosperous economy and society for years to come.
Nick Chambers
CEO, Education and Employers Charity