Comparing occupational tasks across Europe

BIBB and the INAPP are both part of a consortium of six European partners which are working on a programme on behalf of the European Joint Research Centre in Seville. The EU is seeking to hone the instruments it uses to record occupational tasks. For this reason, it has commissioned researchers from the United Kingdom (Warwick Institute for Employment Research), Spain (Universitat Pompeu Fabra), Italy (National Institute for Public Policy Analysis), and Germany (Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training) to collate data from respective national labour force surveys at an occupational level and to make this information comparable. Pretests for a new EU survey instrument on occupational tasks are also being carried out in the participating countries.

Better statistical information on occupational activities is important for vocational education and training research in many regards. Many current projections for the impacts of digitalisation are based on the analysis of changes in occupational task profiles. Deviations in task profiles are of considerable relevance to international comparative research because they may in some cases be indicative of differences between the VET systems of various countries and could be a major factor for firms deciding whether to take part in company-based initial and continuing vocational education and training. Companies with broadly based task profiles will choose training and human resources development strategies that are different from those adopted by companies with a large number of jobs that can be performed by anyone.

This project cooperation ties in with work being conducted within the scope of a research project of BIBB’s own on occupational tasks in international comparative terms, in which the institute’s International and Research Departments are involved.