Education, Skills and Jobs in the KBE

I am writing today as a way to help me sort out thoughts about the relationship between the KBE, job skills and education.  I believe I am going to conclude by challenging the notion that the KBE is raising the skills required for jobs today and that education should provide these skills.  As my daddy used to say, "I think they got that bass-ackward!"

Here is the general story reproduced repeatedly in the KBE discourse concerning education and labour market skills requirements:

KBE --> Jobs --> Labour skills required --> skills used in the job

The story begins with the KBE.  First, it assumes that we are in one, an assumption that continues to be debated (even though much policy starts with the claim that it is now universally accepted).  It is presented that the KBE changes the nature of jobs; the KBE is the reason for and the architect of jobs as they are today.  Policy says things like, "In the KBE, jobs will require...."   So, the KBE is supposed to define the jobs and the nature of these jobs define the skills that are required in the labour force.  

That's the theory.  

Theory needs empirical support, so researchers start at the other end of the "story" and investigate the skills that are being used in jobs, as a surrogate measure of the theoretical skills that are needed for work in the KBE.  Once we look at the skills that are being used (and assume them to be representative of the skills that the KBE needs) we can then compare those skills to those that are being developed through our education system and skills workers are getting through Lifelong learning to determine if the educational systems and practices are meeting the needs of the KBE.  

I find this a circuitous logic which errs by ignoring an important relationship between education and job skill utilization.   But first, let's look at some of the data that has been collected with this story as a foundation.  

Much research has been done, but I'm going to focus on a Canadian compilation from Lavoie and Roy (1998).  Although it is a little dated, it covers a period of 25 yrs, starting in 1971:  a period which is relevant if one want to look at the impacts of a developing KBE.  Lavoie and Roy were among the few (first?) to look in great detail not at industry level trends, but in specific job trends.  This seems rather appropriate to me since policy discourse seems aimed at improving education so that individuals can get the jobs in the new economy.  They adapted an approach by Wolff and Baumol (1989) and categoried jobs into 5 main categories:   Knowledge, Management, Data, Services, and Goods.  I will be brief in describing the categories.  Knowledge work (involving the production of knowledge)  is divided into subcategories of pure science, engineering, applied science, computer (analysts/programmers) and Social sciences (economists, accountants, lawyers, artists).  Data work involves the manipulation and transmission of data (technicians and clerks).  Management is subdivided into management within fields of science and technology and other fields to allow for different sub-analyses.  Services include police, barbers, tour-guides.  Goods work includes farming, packing, machine operators and general production labour.  By dividing jobs this way, we can look specifically at trends related to "knowledge." 

Lavoie and Roy's analysis of trends in the 1971 - 1996 period are used to support the notion that we are in a knowledge based society.  It is posited that if we are in or entering a KBE, Knowledge and Management positions would be on the rise, and the other jobs would be dropping relative to the knowledge and managerial jobs.  Indeed, management grew as a category faster than any other at 7.6% increase in the number of jobs. The number of jobs in the Knowledge category increased by 4.1%, driven largely by the sub-category of "computer" which grew at 8.3%.  In comparison, the categories of Data, Services, and Goods only grew by 2.6%, 0./6% and 2.1% respectively. 

Category	Average annual growth (%)
Knowledge	4.1
Management	7.6
Data	2.2
Services	2.6
Goods	0.6

The conclusion that is tempting to draw is that indeed, we are in a knowledge-based economy; that jobs which involve the creation of knowledge and the management of people and processes and the related decision making, are growing more rapidly than those jobs which do not create or use knowledge in creative ways, but rather either transmit and manipulate it, or produce goods and knowledge-light services.    This is where the story introduces education.  It calls on education to meet the advancing knowledge and skills needs of an advancing KBE.   

The first issue with this conclusion is that although knowledge jobs and management jobs are growing faster than other jobs, they still represent a VERY small proportion of overall employment.  Only 8% of jobs are Knowledge-jobs.  About 10% are management jobs.  Interestingly, many equate and conflate "knowledge-jobs" and the KBE with high-tech and computer careers.  Computer jobs account for only just over 1% of total employment....Those in social sciences such as accounting and law account for almost 5X that amount!  Over 80% of jobs in Canada were still not knowledge-rich.  It's difficult for me to say then that the economy is BASED on knowledge in any significantly different way than it has been in the past.  

In a previous blog, I discussed a matter of confusion with regard to the call for educational reform to meet the needs of the KBE

 

The KBE discourse tends to call for "more highly skilled workers."  I have asked the question:  What does this mean?  Does it mean that we want all workers to have more skills.....which would shift the entire curve to the right but maintain its shape?   Or does it mean that we need a shape-shift in which a larger portion of workers have high-skills......which would move the "hump" of the curve to the right or otherwise change the shape so that the level on the right is relatively higher.

If such a small proportion of workers are involved involved in jobs in knowledge and management, it doesn't seem that shifting the entire graph to the right and maintaining its shape is the appropriate response.  (Of course,  I am not arguing that there would not be benefits to increasing the knowledge/skills/education of an entire population.  I am simply saying that it is not a logical response to a small proportion of workers involved in more knowledge-intensive work).

Perhaps a shape-shift is a more appropriate response.  However, the small numbers still make that response questionable.  What really matters (keeping in the original story line)  is this question:

Do the current systems and practices of education (and lifelong learning) meet the needs for jobs in the economy?

Beyond the small number of people involved in knowledge-intense jobs, Livingstone (1999, 2000, 2004) has extensively detailed the eduction-jobs gap in that same Canadian market. His conclusions are that the skills/knowledge/education of Canadians far exceeds the skills/knowledge/education requirements of the jobs that they have.  Without delving into the differences between over-education and under-employment and such, Livingstone's data and arguments are compelling in suggesting that Canadians do not suffer a deficit of skills/knowledge/education which will fuel the KBE.  In my terminology, neither a shape-maintaining shift, nor a shape-altering shift is necessary to ensure that Canadians have the skills/knowledge/education they require to hold jobs in this "Knowledge" based economy. 

Now, what i really want to discuss is the story itself that I began this blog with.  What I have called "bass-ackward" assumption that the KBE creates jobs with certain essentialist characteristics that education is to provide so that people will use those skills in the job market.  I propose that an important aspect of job creation is being ignored. 

A few analogies first:  why was paper made of rice in ancient China?  Why were the pyramids built by slave labour?  Why does Greek food use a lot of olive oil and yogurt?  Why were Indigenous canoes built of cedar trees?  Why do our cars run primarily on gasoline and electricity and not coal or bio-fuel?  We use the resources that we have a large supply of.  Economists will be the first to say that humans (and their skills/knowledge) , in the economy, are resources. We build our processes and products to capitalize on the resources that we have available to us.

I believe the discourse ignores this fact when it positions jobs as the products of the needs of the KBE.  I'm going to forgo the entire debate as to whether or not this IS a KBE for now, and just talk about the present economy. The discourse speaks about jobs as though they emerge as an automatic result of the needs of the economy: more specifically, that the specific characteristics of the jobs and the skills required for the job are market created outside of human control.  They have forgotten that jobs, and the skills required to do them are human constructs.  For each job created, someone decides what the job tasks will be and how those tasks will be distributed.  Those decisions are based on the availability of skills in the labour market. 

An example:  in the 1980s, clerical "jobs" were designed with a specific skill set.  You would hire a clerk who could type and file and schedule and whatnot because that was the skill set that was out there.  You may decide to not include stenography or calligraphy or short-hand because these skills were not in abundance.  If you DID have need for calligraphy, you might adapt your processes so that you didn't need it, or you might hire out.  You might not include writing of documents in your clerk's job because literacy levels weren't consistently high in the population from which you are drawing candidates.

In the present, you know that there is a wider skill set out there in the population that might consider your clerical job.  You know a large proportion of the population can word process and work with spread-sheets.  Many understand how to search the web or use online ordering systems.  In certain parts of the country, you know that a large proportion of the population can speak in French.  So, not only might you design the job to include writing of documents that the availability of high literacy supports, but you might also include translation of English documents into French for your French customers.  You design your job to capitalize on the abundance of skills/knowledge that is readily available to you. 

KBE discourse considers only the demand side of skills as contributing to the skills in use in the labour market, and ignores the supply that FEEDS the demand.  Canada is among the many many countries that have almost universal secondary education.  More and more people are getting more and more education.  More than 50% of Canadians now have Post Secondary credentials (may still be highest in the world!  woo hoo!  GOOOO Canada! *grin*)   People are now more literate, more multi-lingual, more diversely skilled, more highly educated, more politically informed...   Of COURSE, jobs will adjust to take advantage of that fact!   If we only talk about the KBE influencing the skills level of jobs, we are only seeing half the picture.  It isn't only that the economy is requiring certain skills but....

As the skill levels of the labour market increase, jobs will evolve to capitalize on that skill level. 


Whereas the "official" story in the discourse is:

KBE --> Jobs --> Labour skills required --> skills used in the job

I want to remind us to consider another dimension: 

Education --> skills available --> skills required 

The increasing and diversified education and learning (so much of our skills come from places other than formal education) is creating a pool of skills from which industry can draw when it designs jobs and hires workers.  If jobs require more skills now, it isn't only because the economy demands it but rather because people have those new skills.  We can discuss "credential inflation" at this point, but even beyond that, jobs can be designed to use more skills now, not because the KBE demands it, but because there is a ready supply of it. 

I didn't add : " --> KBE" to the end of the depiction above, although you could argue that high knowledge and high skills in use in jobs contribute to an advancing and successful knowledge economy.  I wanted the effect of education on the skill level used at work to stand on its own first.  However, it can be said that there is a reciprocal relationship between increasing skills requirements and the KBE.  

I remain unconvinced that the market itself (rather, changes in the market that people are associating with a KBE) is driving a demand for higher skilled labour.  KBE supporters will point to the increase in the skills used at work and the relatively higher growth in Knowledge and management jobs and say that these are evidence of a KBE that requires higher skills.  Well, I believe that if we consider the fact that the higher education and skills of the labour market contribute to the design of jobs, we can't site the KBE as the cause of increased skill use in the workplace.    Some might argue that the increase in education/skills of the labour force is a result of individuals appreciation that they live in a KBE and that they need more education and training.  I argue that this may be a contributing factor, and that it may be an increasingly contributing factor as (if) the KBE picks up momentum.  However, it is not the only, and not even necessarily the greatest factor behind mass education and increasingly mass higher education. 

Does raising educational/skills of the population promise economic prosperity for individuals in a KBE?

in a word: No. 

Discourse and policy around LLL and the KBE often calls for an increase in the education/knowledge/skills of workers.  It has struck me that two different forms of “increase” are being discussed, although not always explicitly differentiated. 

Let’s consider for a minute a graphical depiction of the skills/knowledge/education of a population at any particular time.  It might have any shape, but for simplicity, let’s draw it like this for now:

 

We often hear statements like: “we need more workers with higher skills!”   Well, that could be graphically represented in two different ways.  In the diagram below, the red line shows a scenario in which all workers increase their knowledge and skills.  The green line shows one in which a larger proportion of workers have the higher skills that are suggested to be necessary for a high-tech and knowledge-based economy.  It seems to me that calls for increasing knowledge/skills of the workforce don’t usually differentiate between the two.  Indeed, the scenarios are not mutually exclusive and one gets the impression that the discourse is calling for both. 

 

Nested in the discourse is also the idea that this will lead to economic prosperity. Sometimes, but not always the “who” of economic prosperity isn’t mentioned.  It is a reasonable argument to make to say that by increasing the knowledge/skills of everyone, AND increasing the proportion of the population with exceptionally high skills will lead to national or corporate prosperity and profit.  (This assumption does not go uncontested however.  Though, this is not the argument I want to engage here.)   I would suggest that in general, this is the “who” that is being discussed in the first order.  The prosperity of nations and corporations is primarily what is being sought.  Secondarily, it is sometimes included that a prosperous nation/company will result in prosperous individuals. The prosperity of individuals is considered and is presented as an automatic outcome of the prosperity of companies and nations.  This too sounds reasonable at first glance.  But it is not an uncontested idea and it is the one that I wish to consider here.

Consider the assumption:  Workers with higher skills and knowledge earn higher wages and have better access to jobs.

One would find it easy to provide evidence of the validity of this assumption.  A larger proportion of people with low education and low skills face unemployment and low wages than do people with higher skills and education.  However, can this assumption hold in a new economy where all are more knowledgeable and more skilled and where there is a higher proportion of individuals with “high skills?” 

The green shift above does not mean that there are more high skilled jobs for the high skilled workers.  By increasing the supply of workers with high-skills, you do not create more jobs for workers with high skills.  If the number of jobs for high-skilled workers does not increase, then the increased supply will only mean increased competition for the existing jobs and a decrease in the wages that the high-skilled credentials command. 

Similarly, the red shift above means that everyone now has a greater level of knowledge and skill.  No one has changed their position relative to other individuals in terms of their intellectual capital. Furthermore, the supply of jobs in the market has not changed.  The demand for workers hasn’t changed. So, employment rates remain unchanged and wages remain unchanged. 

What I suspect is a conflation between the individual and the collective, between the nation/corporation and the individual.  If both the green and red shift occur, a company/nation can become more competitive RELATIVE TO companies and nations in which the shift has not occurred. They will not necessarily be more competitive compared to those in which there have been similar shifts.  Competitive advantage is only a comparative advantage: it relies on the relative position of the competing forces.  Similarly, the competitive advantage that an individual can gain when (s)he is increasing his/her intellectual capital through education is only realized in a relatively static competitive field.  In a green or red shift, there is no relative change and no increased competitive advantage for the individual. 

Of course, this is an over-simplification.  Economic prosperity, whether national or individual, occurs in a very complex environment of factors. Changes in political factors, for example, can instantly change everything.  However, the point that I want to make is that suggestions that increasing the knowledge/skills of workers in general will lead to economic prosperity for individuals automatically, is naïve.

If the KBE and LLL are the answer: What is the question?

A thought-in-process today as I'm trying to make sense of the things that I have read on the Knowledge-Based Economy.

Policy makers (both national and supra-national), sociologists, economists, industrialists and others start with the fact that we are in a Knowledge-Based Economy, and then premise the rest of their arguments around that fact.  Never mind that there are a great many scholars who debate that the economy is in any fundamental way different than what it has been in the past (e.g. see Godin 2006), and even ignore for a minute that conceptualizations of what a KBE IS are almost always exceptionally vague (intentionally?) and completely inconsistent.  What I have found  interesting is that all of these discussants speak as though everyone is talking about the same KBE and as though the problems and questions for which KBE is the answer, are all understood by everyone.  It strikes me as similar to sports fans sitting around the bar discussing last night's game.  The only problem is that Jo is discussing the baseball game, Pat is discussing soccer, and Chris is discussing jai alai!

I like to build my understanding from the ground up.  I want to build a foundational structure first and then allow my reading to add to the structure.  So, to me, it seemed natural to ask:  "What's the question?" so that I could examine the conceptualizations of the KBE in terms of the questions and problems that it was involved in addressing.  It seemed surprising to me that authors who speak so authoritatively on the KBE do not as a matter of course, make the the questions that they prioritize obvious.

It appears to me that there are a number of questions that those discussing the KBE want to address.  I can categorized a number of them in this way:
1.  Questions related to how to increase productivity, competitive advantage and profit for companies, nations and regions.  I think of this as the competition-focus.
2. Questions related to determining which types of jobs will be available in a KBE in a country, region or globally. I think of this as the labour-market focus.

Certainly, they are related, but I think that it is important to acknowledge that these ARE separate questions and represent separate interests.  Although, they are often presented (for instance in OECD, and World Bank policy documents) as being part and parcel of the same package:  Increasing competitive advantage will surely have some sort of positive impact on  jobs in general....in some vague way [hey, just trust us on this! wink wink] 

Within each of those questions there are sub-questions concerning, for instance,
a) how education does/can/should feed the KBE. This can involve questions about the types of skills and knowledges that should be promoted.
b) the distribution of jobs and the economic rewards associated with them (both in global and more local terms).

I grew up in the 70s in a blue-collar family, daughter of a labour union leader in a city where 80% of the population was directly or indirectly employed by the automotive manufacturing industry.  So, I tend to want to ask the questions in the labour-market focus.  I do not ascribe to the assumption that competitive advantage will have some globally positive but un-named effect on the labour market. In fact, some authors give evidence of deleterious effects in various segments of the labour market.  Authors have questioned if (at home and abroad) there will be a demand for more highly skilled/educated/knowledgable workers.  It has been argued that knowledge-workers in Western countries may be facing reduced wages and deteriorating working conditions.

 I want to understand how the changes that are happening in the global economy, in what people are calling a knowledge-based economy, are going to affect the types of jobs that are available, the types of skills and knowledge required for those jobs, where those jobs are going to be, how those jobs will be remunerated, what conditions will accompany those jobs.  I think that by focusing the conversation on the knowledge based economy, it is subtly suggested that the solution to all our problems lies in education.  Indeed, there are changes going on in the economy, but to focus on one area of that change (in this case "knowledge" which for many really means Information and Computer Technology) is near-sighted and reductionist.  Particularly when it isn't clear what is meant by knowledge and how it is influencing the economy.

Questions about the labour market can take on more globalized and more localized foci.  And each of these foci need to be identified when one identifies the questions of interest.  For instance, if I am interested in questions concerning the labour market in the West in the present economy, I think there are at least 2 key (although related) characteristics of the economy that significantly affect directions for the labour market:

1.  The spread of various ICTs and other technologies:  the speed with which information is transmitted; the availability and access to information; the networking that it supports; the rate of change associated with new technologies; and the reduction of geography as a barrier to various processes. 
2. The growing participation of developing countries, particularly China and India, (related, of course, to the spread of ICTs) in high-tech and knowledge-intense industries, but also in a wide variety of low and medium "tech" and knowledge/skill/education dependent industries.

I'm simplifying a little here, but what this means to me is that:
1. Jobs that can be automated may be less available in the developing economic reality.





Some jobs that may be most secure may be those that
a) have to be done by a human because they require completely human characteristics such as charm and creativity or are subject to so much change that the automation technology cannot adjust; or
b) have to be done locally.  This would include the use or development of things that are not movable (construction, mining for example) and those jobs that necessarily bring the customer to the job (doctors, teachers).

 This is an over-simplification, indeed.  And there will be changes within those fields that are more secure.  The main point that I want to make is that

a) You have to define the questions that you are concerned with when you discuss the KBE.  It is simply NOT the case that questions of competitive advantage are the only important questions to ask.  
b) If you are interested in questions of labour-market effects, it is important also to identify the labour market with which you are concerned.  The concerns of a Western labour market are not the same as those of a global labour market. 
c) if your specific questions are about the changes in jobs in a Western labour market, "knowledge" isn't the only aspect driving change.  And education isn't the only solution. 

Moving Break

Sorry about not posting the last few days.
I'm moving and have just now gotten internet again.
And am digging out from under a pile of boxes.
I hope to be back with a post in a few days.

Social capital in a Vision of the Knowledge Economy

Today I'm going to discuss a chapter written by Tom Schuller in the Book edited by Brian Kahin and Dominique Foray entitled:  Advancing Knowledge and the Knowledge Economy.  The book contains contributions from a variety of scholars who are mostly experts on the economics side of the KBE.  Frankly, as a non-economist, I don't understand everything in the book and cannot speak engagingly about the economic models.
However, this particular chapter entitled

Social Capital, Networks, and Communities of Knowledge

I found to be particularly interesting (and digestible for me! *grin*) because it presented an argument for the inclusion of social capital concepts in our understanding of networks of Knowledge construction.  I read into it a little bit deeper in that I suggest that Schuller is also giving light to a different way of thinking about the knowledge economy.  Whereas many would define the KBE along the lines of more knowledge, or more technology, or more trade in knowledge, each a rather linear plane of conceptualization, Schuller seems to have a more 3-D understanding of the KBE.  

  He begins by giving a brief introduction to social capital as it is understood by economist and the OECD in "the Well-Being of Nations" (2001, pl 41): 

“networks together with shared norms, values and understanding that facilitate cooperation within or among groups” (OECD 2001, p. 41)  

He then introduces the reader to Woolcock's (1998) distinction between Bonding Social Capital and Bridging Social Capital.  The former happens between relatively homogeneous groups such as professional bodies.  The latter bridges between such groups, integrating inter-disciplinarily.   He also discusses a distinction that Woolcock makes between bridging and linking SC, but it is mainly to identify that the distinction is not relevant for his discussion. 

Schuller posits that

• the value of bridging SC is  important because it allows for the flow of new ideas/expertise/opportunities in Knowledge creation/utilisation
• a successful dynamic between Bonding and Bridging SC will contribute to sustained Knowledge generation

He proposes that k is not just the accumulation of information and that the competencies required to generate knowledge exist in groups and networks. 


He now introduces what I am most interested in:  3 dimensions of knowledge:  

 

He presents us with a graphical depiction of these dimensions.  He labels the axes A, B, and C. 

A --> the accumulation of Knowledge (of all sorts)

B--> access to the knowledge (can be formal access such as open source or patents, or other forms such as having the skills required to interpret and utilize the knowledge)

C--> Cultural/organizational processes that govern validation of knowledge (how we ascribe confidence in the knowledge)

He doesn't explicitly go down this route, but it strikes me that this is an interesting way to see the KBE.  If we are in a KBE (and I reserve some questions about the degree to which the current economy is that different from other economies based on knowledge), then one way we can identify the ways in which the economy is (or is not) different is by looking at these 3 dimensions of knowledge and its impact on the economy.   Other writers tend toward descriptions of the KBE in terms of the plane A:  an increase in knowledge generation.  Some do introduce discussions within the plane B, but often that is relegated to the impact of ICTs [computers give people more access].  The third plane seems less obvious in the discourse about the KBE, but it strikes me as exceptionally important.  

Consider this:  if the amount of knowledge has risen to the degree that people suggest and if access through ICTs (and even the expansion of higher education) has increased, people are now faced with selection problems. Where should one look for the knowledge they need, and which knowledge should be trusted?  A simple example makes the point:  You are experiencing particularly physical symptoms that make you wonder if you have a disease.  You have a plethora of sources of knowledge to draw upon, not least of which is now a multitude of websites.  Where do you go for your information and who do you trust?  Companies face the same issues when they have access to so much information.  Whose market research? Whose material resource comparisons?    I saw this clearly when I worked in the pharmaceutical sales industry.  Doctors, in search of the best treatments for their patients can turn to journals, peers, websites, conferences, their own experiences, clinical trials, or sales representatives from the companies. 

I suggest that it is meaningless to talk about an increase in knowledge or an increase in access to knowledge as defining properties of a KBE if we do not at the same time address changes in the ways in which knowledge is validated and trusted.  A doctor or a business or a consumer can access a great deal of information on the Internet in their attempts to make decisions, however, if those sources are not trusted, if the ways of validating them have become difficult due to sheer growth in knowledge generation (e.g. how will peer review keep up?) then can we really speak of the increased size of the knowledge base as a driving force in the economy in the same way?  

The author admits that "this chapter has presented nothing in the way of empirical substance" but I do think that asserting the importance of validity of knowledge in the understanding of a KBE is valuable.  He does so by linking forms of social capital and opening discussion on how that contributes to knowledge generation through effective networking.

He concludes with 3 policy questions:


1. What factors (social and technological) have shaped the ways networks function?
2.  How can education promote participation in networks/communities of knowledge (including moral competence as well as technical)
3. How do the architectures of our educational institutions address access and validation demands of a KBE?

................................

I am currently reading a variety of diverse resources on the KBE as I prepare to write comprehensive exams.  So, in the next posts, you may find that my ruminations are eclectic and disconnected.  Feel free to challenge me on anything I post.  I would benefit from the critique.