Employability Development Theory: Policy Implications for Supporting Youth at Risk of Limited Employment (YARLE)

Abstract

Many countries have applied various policies and programmes that aim to reduce numbers of NEETs (youth not in employment, education or training), or raise rates of low level qualification attainment among youth populations, based on the theory that doing so will ultimately lead to improved youth labour market outcomes. As well as providing the types of education and training programmes that prioritise low level qualification attainment as a key programme success measure, other types of active labour market programmes (ALMPs) are also applied widely. These other types of ALMPs are typically designed to directly and urgently focus on moving currently NEET, unemployed or underemployed target groups into employment. Furthermore, although they are not given as much attention in this research, a country’s choice of programmes and policy settings that concern youth social welfare assistance, and careers information, advice, guidance and education (CIAGE), is also relevant to achieving the intertwined agendas of developing youth employability and improving eventual patterns of youth labour market outcomes. Collectively, the aforementioned programme types, fields of policy work and associated educational and employment-focused policy agendas are conceptualised in this research as the broadest definition of employability policy responses.

What is of interest as a research focus, is the workings or non-workings of some common types of employability policy responses. A more risk-targeted second interest lay in identifying and explaining the policy workings, non-workings and intervention potential to improve outcomes specifically for youth who are NEET (not in employment, education or training), or who are otherwise relatively at risk of limited employment (YARLE).

Unfortunately, many design types and instances of ALMPs, including some kinds of education and training programmes, have had a limited effect on persistently poor labour market outcomes for the at risk groups that they target. Exclusively NEET-targeted programmes, many of which prioritise low level qualification attainment, have not been effective on the whole in reducing long term patterns of limited and poor quality labour market outcomes. The term ‘limited’ includes reference to prolonged or frequent periods of being unemployed.

Qualification attainment is one theorised change to an individual’s life context that is theoretically meant to improve their employment outcome prospects. However, this is only one change to context that interventions might focus on changing in order to improve employability and employment attainment. On its own, low level qualification attainment does not appear to be an adequate programme outcome that triggers employment outcome improvements for NEET and unqualified school leavers in particular. Thus, what is described within the research as theory on education-employment linkages, including theory about qualifying NEET or unqualified youth, was investigated and eventually challenged as a research conclusion.

One reason why the aforementioned types of policy responses are not leading to improved youth labour market outcomes may be that the design of such responses, and the generalised theories and assumptions that they reflect, are oversimplistic or flawed. Perhaps they do not adequately account for, or respond to the contextual factors and change mechanisms that the formation of employability, and the attainment of employment tends to depend upon. This includes assumptions and potential theoretical flaws that are reflected within the design, outcome focus and targeting of interventions at subgroups of youth who are deemed to be at risk, or already in, limited employment outcomes, compared to be their age peers overall.

Reasons and proposed indicators of being relatively at risk of long term limited employment include the widely recognised classification of being NEET, and the characteristic of having left school (or being about to leave school imminently) without qualifications. The two personal situation characteristics that are captured by the NEET acronym is indeed relevant to officially identifying at least a large proportion of the youth who are more likely to experience poorer labour market outcomes that one’s similarly aged peers. However, it was concluded from the research that ‘being NEET’, when used on its own as an indicator of who to target and why, and as a policy explanation of what needs to be changed about the young people concerned or their world context and experiences, the effectiveness of policy responses that are based only on this theory are likely to remain typically limited.

In order to better understand what works, does not work, or might work, and why, to improve labour market outcomes among current and previously NEET young people—and among other and overlapping subgroups of youth who are at risk or disadvantaged for other reasons—it seems that more accurate and multi-faceted policy explanations are needed about what else individual employability and employment outcomes tend to depend upon. This includes a need to clarify other common reasons, indicators or contexts of employability risk or disadvantage, and to improve theory about some of the change mechanisms through which employment outcomes and/or the development of individual employability tend to be influenced. These kinds of clarifications are referred to in the research as theory about generalisable employability dependencies.

By more clearly identifying and explaining a range of seemingly key employability dependencies, it may be possible to improve the theory and assumptions upon which programmes and other policy responses are designed. It may accordingly be possible to improve the effectiveness of multiple types of programmes and policy settings, which come from multiple policy sectors, and which have in common that they are all theoretically meant to improve young people’s employability, or their employment attainments more directly.

A key research contribution is the development of the concept of youth at risk of limited employment (YARLE), as a more expanded and multi-faceted definition, and accompanying evidence-based explanation about which youth are typically at risk of limited employment outcomes, and why. Furthermore, the research offers a multi-faceted account of a range of key factors that employability development, and eventual employment outcomes tend to depend upon; especially the outcome type of the initial attainment of a job with a new employer. Many employability development disadvantages are identifiable from birth or childhood, whereas most of the prevalent NEET-focused types of interventions are not activated until after approximately age 15 or 16.

Policy explanations about what works as employability development and employment intervention, for which youth, and under what circumstances appeared to be limited before the research was undertaken. The limited effectiveness of related types of policy responses in improving eventual and long term youth labour market outcomes, particularly those that are NEET-targeted, indicated that better evidence and explanation was required to inform the review and development of such policy responses. Accordingly, existing evidence was synthesised, and theories were progressively reviewed and developed, to answer the following research question, including explaining policy implications and applications of the research answers:

What key dependencies shape the nature and extent of individual employability, which is taken as employment abilities, intentions and outcome likelihoods or prospects, and what explains why some youth are at risk of limited employment relative to their peers?

The research question was answered by synthesising existing theory and evidence and generating a comprehensive theory of employability, one designed to serve efforts to improve government responses towards developing youth employment capability and labour market outcomes. The work brought disconnected theories and associated evidence together. It considered key factors relevant to improving employment outcomes and capability from early childhood to adulthood involving multiple policy sectors. The synthesis produced a theoretical explanation of individual employability, its development, and contexts of risk or disadvantage, beyond ‘being NEET’ as one risk characteristic. The development of the theory enabled an elaboration of specific policy implications for identifying risks, needs, or opportunities, or for improving youth employability, especially to address disadvantage and potentially improve labour market outcomes for YARLE.

Overall, some key employability dependencies that deserve more explicit policy attention and further research include: non-cognitive skills, work experience, some intergenerational disadvantages, and challenges regarding the signalling of individual employability (especially to potential employers in relation to particular jobs). The terms non-cognitive skills and soft skills conceptually overlap with many other terms, and skill or trait measures. Many of the semantically overlapping terms, including some that have emerged from academic literature and some from policy practice, and associated outcome evidence about such skills, were extensively unpacked within the research as a major research contribution. This includes a synthesis of evidence which has linked measures of non-cognitive skills or traits to labour market outcomes, including some evidence which has linked later life labour market outcomes to skill or trait measures that were taken years earlier during childhood.

The research contributes to policy practice by synthesising a multi-disciplinary range of existing empirical evidence, supplementing explanation by reviewing established theories in academic literature, and by eliciting and critiquing the theories, strategies, outcome expectations and generalised assumptions that are reflected within common types of policy responses.

The research design is reflective of a realist approach to evidence synthesis and theory development. The design is focused on eliciting, building and critiquing theories as the basis, or potential future basis, for policies or programme designs. Literature searches and selections were accordingly driven by the aim of synthesising and translating the policy and policy outcome relevance of the findings, conclusions and theories that were located in existing literature. The research design is also reflective of a scoping review, in the sense that emphasis also went towards clarifying some concept definition problems, which seemed to be hindering the potential to conduct more narrowly scoped future evidence syntheses, and to subsequently further clarify employability’s dependencies, outcomes and policy implications.

The potential to practically apply the research outputs of employability theory, and supporting literature syntheses, to the purposes of policy evaluation or design was demonstrated by including a standalone report that was later produced for New Zealand policy makers. The report drew upon the research outputs that had been produced earlier on. It focused on reviewing what works to improve outcomes for YARLE or NEET youth, and evaluated potential flaws and opportunities for improving New Zealand’s suite of education and employment-focused policy responses; particularly as relevant to improving outcomes for NEET and other YARLE subgroups. As is demonstrated by the narrative in the New Zealand report, and as was further validated by additional evidence that was reviewed and cited within the report, the research conclusions about key employability dependencies, the associated YARLE concept, and conclusions about policy effectiveness or ‘workability’, are valuable contributions that can practically be applied to policy evaluation and development purposes.