Contact us

Skills and Employability Branch (SKILLS)

Staff
Employment Policy Department

International Labour Office 4 Route des Morillons

Geneva 22
Switzerland
CH-1211

Tel : +41 22 799 7512
Fax : +41 22 799 6310
Email : skills@ilo.org
Website : www.ilo.org/skills

Recent publications and reports

  1. Apprenticeships

    ILO Toolkit for Quality Apprenticeships

    The ILO Toolkit for Quality Apprenticeships aims to improve the design and implementation of apprenticeship systems and programmes. The Toolkit consists of two volumes: Guide for Policy Makers, and a Guide for Practitioners.

  2. Career Guidance

    Career guidance policy and practice in the pandemic: Results of a joint international survey

    This joint global report reflects how career guidance services responded to the challenges posed by Covid-19. It highlights the range of solutions found, especially digital, and the challenges felt by services, practitioners and clients.

  3. Guide and digital interactive assessment tool on Making TVET and skills development inclusive for all

    The guide aims to help skills decision-makers and practitioners assess to what extent their TVET system is currently excluding certain individuals or groups, and provides practical ideas on what could be done to redress inequalities.

  4. Guidelines on Rapid Assessment of reskilling and upskilling needs in response to the COVID-19 crisis

    The guidelines focus on three broad types of impact on the labour market, and hence on demand for skills and opportunities for workers, with implications for reskilling and upskilling needs.

  5. ILO Evaluation Tool for the Review of a Country’s Apprenticeship Policy and System

    The ILO Evaluation Tool comprises guidelines and questionnaires and gives guidance on how to evaluate a country’s apprenticeship policy and system.

  6. The Digitization of TVET and Skills Systems

    This joint ILO-UNESCO report provides a global, high-level overview of how digitalization is affecting TVET and skills systems.

  7. Skills to combat forced labour

    The ILO has launched two Global Guidelines on the prevention and reintegration of victims of forced labour through skills and lifelong learning.

  8. Rapid STED: A practical guide

    This new guide provides advice on implementing an updated approach to STED. It aims to speed the process and to build capacity among national and sector partners.

Skills and Employability Branch (SKILLS)

Governments, employers' associations and trade unions around the world are working to improve the employability of workers, move young people into productive and decent work, and increase the productivity of enterprises through better quality and relevant training. The Skills and Employability Branch conducts comparative research and provides policy guidelines and technical assistance to help constituents integrate skills development into national and sector development strategies.

The ILO's work with constituents focuses primarily on three areas: linking training to current labour market needs as well as anticipating and building competencies for the jobs of the future; building quality apprenticeship systems and incorporating core skills into training for young people; and expanding access to employment-related training in rural communities in order to improve livelihoods, reduce poverty, and equip women and men to work in the formal economy.

What's new

  1. Changing demand for skills in digital economies and societies: Literature review and case studies from low- and middle-income countries

    The report reviews different approaches to measuring digital skills, and discusses the impact of digitalization on skills and related policy recommendations.

  2. Policy Brief - Digitalisation of TVET and skills development: Leveraging technology to support lifelong learning

    This policy brief concentrates on the digital transformation of skills systems and how technologies affect them. It is focused on how skills systems themselves become digitised, not how they respond to the demand for skills arising from digitalisation in the labour market.

  3. Video series: Shaping skills and lifelong learning for the future of work

    This series of videos highlight the key points addressed in the report "Shaping skills and lifelong learning for the future of work" to be discussed at the 109th International Labour Conference.

  4. ILO announces the winners of the 3rd ILO Skills Innovation Call on Preventing forced labour in Africa

    The winner of the 3rd ILO Skills Challenge Innovation Call has been announced, and the USD 30,000 prize has gone to a youth entrepreneurship network in Comoros.

  5. ILO announces winners of the 2nd ILO Skills Challenge Innovation Call on e-formality and skills development

    Winning proposals offer innovative solutions for labour formalization in Latin America and the Caribbean through new technologies and skills development.

  6. Digitalization of national TVET and skills systems: Harnessing technology to support LLL: An enquiry and action framework

    This report describes and updates the picture of digital vocational education and training, providing an overview of the issues surrounding digitalisation across the key functional areas of skills systems.

  7. The ILO and the Government of Bangladesh developed an awareness-raising campaign for TVET institutes

    ILO’s EU funded Skills 21 project supported the government of Bangladesh to develop an awareness-raising campaign strategy for the TVET institutes to bring behavioural changes in awareness, knowledge, attitudes and beliefs, self-efficacy and social norms towards TVET.

  8. Meet the finalists of the 3rd ILO Skills Challenge Innovation Call on Preventing forced labour in Africa

    The finalists will be invited to present their ideas in a virtual pitch event, which will be the final stage of the evaluation process.

  9. e-formality and skills development

    Pitch Day: The power of innovation

    During the event, the finalists of the 2nd Skills Challenge Innovation Call will present their ideas to boost formalization through technology and skills development in the region.

  10. Meet the finalists of the 2nd ILO Skills Challenge Innovation Call

    The finalists will have the opportunity to present their projects during a live-streamed event on 4 November 2021.

  11. ILO and Swiss Federal University for Vocational Education and Training sign an agreement to promote skills and lifelong learning

    The Letter of Understanding between the two organizations aims to promote skills and lifelong learning for all workers throughout their working lives.

  12. Virtual Conference

    Continental virtual conference on skills anticipation and matching in Africa

    Under the auspices of the Skills Initiative for Africa, (SIFA) the Africa Union Commission, and African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NPEAD), with the technical support of the International Labour Organization will be holding an Africa wide conference on Skills Anticipation.

  13. Global framework on core skills for life and work in the 21st century

    The new ILO global framework reflects the ongoing transformations and the emerging opportunities in the world of work. Nineteen core skills are listed as essential both for work and life.

  14. Infographic

    Competency-Based Training (CBT): An Introductory Manual for Practitioners

    The competency-based training (CBT) approach to TVET is highly effective to ensure that training programmes remain relevant to the labour market.

  15. Investing in career guidance

    This leaflet, authored by six international agencies, reflects on the crucial role of career guidance in supporting youth and adults in skilling, re-skilling and securing successful careers and livelihoods during economic recovery.