Work in Progress
Qualifications use for recruitment in the Australian labour market
Summary
- Item:
- 10178
- Title:
- Qualifications use for recruitment in the Australian labour market
- Type:
- Managed research project
- Project no:
- NR1021
- Status:
- Finished
- Date commenced:
- 30 September 2001
- Contact:
- Jack Keating
- phone: +61 3 8344 6020
- email: jkeating@unimelb.edu.au
Purpose
The key question to be answered in this study is: what do qualifications signal for employers, and how much confidence do employers have in the predictive capacity of qualifications? (This will be influenced by regulatory and occupational requirements, but also by cultural characteristics).
Approach
Literature review & Survey of 900 employers
Research questions
1. What use is made by employers of qualifications in recruitment at the entry level and in recruitment and personnel management at post entry level within the firm internal and external labour markets? (This is a very large research question that will need to disaggregate by industry area, firm size, qualification level, and region. For the fieldwork, therefore, it will be necessary to make a selection of industry areas.)
2. What are the factors that influence the use of qualifications by employers and their degree of trust in qualifications?
3. What are the dynamic variables (supply and demand side) that influence employer use of and trust in qualifications?
4. What is the relationship between VET and other qualifications, and the impact of this relationship upon the use by employers of qualifications?
5. What is the impact of international and company based qualifications upon the supply, management and use by employers, and how are nations responding to this impact?
6. What factors enhance and weaken the use of qualifications by employers in other countries?
7. What factors influence the use by employers of qualifications that are gained by people who have poor educational backgrounds, and those gained by adults to assist in employment reentry?
Methodology
Stage 1
* a comprehensive review of the Australian and international literature;
Stage 2
* the development of a structural and behavioural framework of the Australian labour market as a basis for the examination of employer interactions with qualifications;
Stages 3 and 4
* a large national interview based survey of employers to be conducted using ECEF regional education-industry coordinators. The key purpose of this approach is to allow the project to locate the patterns of use by employers of qualifications rather than the attitudes of employers to training, education and qualifications;
Stages 5 and 6
* an international comparative study.
Organisations
This is a joint collaborative project of RMIT University Centre for Post Compulsory Education and Training (CPET) and The University of Melbourne.
The major partner, CPET, is an educational research facility which conducts Australia-wide research across a range of educational sectors, including schools, universities, TAFEs and the adult education sector (including extensive research in the areas of young people, VET and employment, with a particular emphasis upon post education and training transition patterns). CPET was awarded Research Partner status by the Australian National Training Authority in 2000.
