Employment:
Skills and training

In the past a substantial proportion of commerce workers had no formal vocational training, gaining their skills mainly on the job. However, the social partners in the sector now generally agree on the need to for better structured skills development, and to ensure vocational training which reflects and fulfils the current needs of the sector. There is particularly important given a marked tendency, at least in more modern retail formats, to replace low-skilled jobs with those requiring higher levels of education. The trend is expected to persist with the introduction of even more advanced retail and distribution chain management technologies, including more generalized use of radio frequency identification (RFID) applications and other smart technologies. This is opening up new areas of work which will be attractive to workers with higher education qualifications. To give their existing employees a chance at these new jobs, many employers will need to provide additional education and training so that they too can acquire the requisite skills for the new functions. Retail employers and workers’ organizations are therefore increasingly emphasizing that training should focus on IT, numeric and customer service skills. They are also calling for greater government efforts to continuously raise education standards and for stakeholders to be more involved in planning of education and vocational training curricula that are better aligned with their industry’s current and future needs.

In recognition of these developments and at the request of its constituents, in November 2008 the ILO will be organizing a global dialogue forum on vocational education and skills development for commerce workers. The forum will examine current and future employment needs in the sector as a basis for designing skills development strategies and vocational education programmes for the retail and wholesale industries. These would aim at supporting commerce workers’ employment prospects and employability while improving business productivity and competitiveness.

Useful links/resources

• Tripartite Meeting on Social and Labour Implications of the Increased Use of Advanced Retail Technologies
  Note on the proceedings
  Geneva, 18-20 September 2006