Education and the labour market

Education plays an important role in preparing people to get a job — to enter the labour market. At school, you learn how to interact with a wide variety of people and work in teams. And the longer you spend in school, the better your skills become! Diplomas, certificates, and degrees show that a person can commit to something for a period of time and finish tasks. These are all things that employers want in their employees.

And employers know that workers who have spent time in school have experience learning new things. They are more likely to be able to be trained quickly, add to their skills, and adapt to changes. But how much education is the right amount? In most countries, children are required by law to attend school for a certain amount of time - there is compulsory education. We learn basic writing, reading, and number skills in primary education.

Primary education typically lasts six years and is followed by secondary education. In most countries, secondary education is compulsory too, at least until age 15 or higher. But completing primary and secondary education is not enough to get a job in every field. For some jobs, you may need to continue studying and pursue tertiary education. Tertiary education includes universities and colleges, and offers qualifications at different levels.

Tertiary qualifications in the form of degrees, certificates, and diplomas are a way of showing employers that you have the specialised knowledge they are looking for. Depending on what you're studying, it can take anywhere from one to eight years to finish tertiary education. Every university and college is unique. Art or military colleges, for example, have very specific focuses. Others are much more general, with hundreds of different programs to choose from.

There is a lot of variety, so it is important to do research about the path you're interested in. The level of education you have and the amount of money you can make are closely related. We know this because of findings from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development - the OECD. The OECD has 38 member countries across Asia, Oceania, the Americas, and Europe. Studies across OECD countries show that those who have completed secondary education earn 23% more than those who haven’t.

Meanwhile, people with tertiary education can expect to earn 55% more on average than a person without tertiary education. So there are likely to be some economic advantages to continuing your education. Even so, getting a job is almost never guaranteed, no matter how much schooling you have. That's because the kind of jobs available in a certain part of the world, or even a certain city, can change quickly. For example, the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 brought a sudden need for more healthcare staff, and a rapid decrease in jobs in the tourism industry as travel became restricted.

This is just one way the labour market can shift. Changes in the labour market often mean people need to be adaptable. Even if you have the education to enter your chosen job, you might need to re-train at some point in your career, or upgrade your skills through more education. As of 2021, science, technology, engineering, and healthcare are among the world’s fastest growing job industries, and almost all jobs in these industries require some level of education. It is impossible to know exactly what kinds of work, businesses, and trades will emerge in the future.

However the labour market unfolds, education will always help with accessing more parts of it.