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No 5 November 2004

 

← No 6 February 2005 | eNewsletters | No 4 October 2004 →

1.  Tertiary education in an improving labour market

Recent labour market information shows that New Zealand is moving into a period of strong employment growth and low unemployment.

In terms of unemployment rates, the main differentiation now is between those with 6th form and above qualitications and those with no qualifications. However, in terms of incomes there is still a definite advantage for those with degrees and vocational and trade qualifications. See Cross Strategy Indicator 2.

Recent information from the Department of Labour suggests that skill shortages are intensifying because the economy has expanded rapidly and the unemployment rate has fallen sharply. Skill shortages are increasing at the lower-end of the skill spectrum. Nevertheless, skilled positions remain hard to fill. This raises the importance of expanding output through growth in productivity of the workforce and through expanding the pool of available workers by lifting labour force participation. See http://www.dol.govt.nz/publications/lmr/lmr-Skills.asp

It would appear that the improving labour market is having an effect on the movement of some groups of students from school to tertiary. There has been a slight decline in the education participation rate (school and tertiary) for 18 year olds¹. This aligns with a decline in the proportion of school leavers going into certificate level study. Movement to higher levels of study is unchanged.

This suggests that school leavers, who previously would have gone into certificate courses, are taking up employment opportunities. However, labour force participation rate for 15–19 year olds has not increased, which suggests an increased group of young people neither in education nor steady employment. See Success Criteria 14

So what does this mean for tertiary education? some thoughts …

• continued demand for and economic benefits to people with higher level qualifications
• for those with lower qualifications, there are more work opportunities, which may deter them from undertaking pre-employment tertiary education
• more demand for upskilling within the workplace

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2.  Question of the Month

This is the last eNewsletter for this year. The eNewsletters will resume in February 2005.

In this month’s question, we are asking for your feedback on the eNewsletter and the wiki site, which we will use to look at how we can improve things next year.

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3.  First annual monitoring report to be released in March 2005

The first of the annual monitoring reports for the TES will be released in March 2005. This report will follow up on the Baseline Monitoring Report and cover:

• updates of key indicators
• progress with implementation of policies related to the TES
• an initial analysis of TEO profiles and their response to the TES.

It will also include new baseline indicators from the Ministry’s work on qualification retention, completion and progression rates and the PBRF.

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4.  Related information of interest

New Zealand Schools, Ngā Kura o Aotearoa 2003

The annual report on the school sector was released last month. This report contains information about compulsory schooling in New Zealand. It includes analysis of NCEA results and the movement of students from school to tertiary education.

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¹ An error was found in the age data used originally calculate tertiary participation in 2003. The data on the Success Criteria 14 has now been corrected. (↑)

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