Skills Alignment and 'Matching' -- Easy to Specify, Hard to Deliver?

Abstract

This paper represents the latest in a line of papers and think pieces that the author has prepared on this topic -- for the UK government, the UK Skills and Productivity Board, and the Scottish Government and Scottish Funding Council -- since 2014. It seeks to explain why trying to bring skills supply into closer alignment with demand for skills from employers is a much more demanding task than might at first be imagined, and that simple notions of getting supply to 'match' demand may produce policy goals that cannot be delivered. The objective of seeking a closer alignment between the outputs of the education and training (E&T) system and the labour and skill needs of the economy is one that it is hard to object to. Better skills alignment is a public policy goal in almost all developed and indeed developing economies. However, accepting the goal is very different from delivering it, and the purpose of this paper is to stimulate reflection on the barriers that may stand in the way of making further progress and also to identify avenues for future policy development.