Skills Matter: Further Results from the Survey of Adult Skills. OECD Skills Studies

In the wake of the technological revolution that began in the last decades of the 20th century, labour market demand for information-processing and other high-level cognitive and interpersonal skills is growing substantially. The "Survey of Adult Skills," a product of the OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), was designed to provide insights into the availability of some of these key skills in society and how they are used at work and at home. The first survey of its kind, it directly measures proficiency in several information-processing skills--namely literacy, numeracy and problem solving in technology-rich environments. This volume reports results from the 24 countries and regions that participated in the first round of the survey in 2011-12 (published in "OECD Skills Outlook 2013: First Results from the Survey of Adult Skills") and from the nine additional countries that participated in the second round in 2014-15 (Chile, Greece, Indonesia [Jakarta], Israel, Lithuania, New Zealand, Singapore, Slovenia and Turkey). It describes adults' proficiency in the three information-processing skills assessed, and examines how skills proficiency is related to labour market and social outcomes. This document contains a foreword, acknowledgements, reader's guide, an executive summary, and five chapters as follows: (1) Overview: Why Skills Matter; (2) Adults' Proficiency in Key Information-Processing Skills; (3) The Socio-Demographic Distribution of Key Information-Processing Skills; (4) How Skills Are Used in the Workplace; and (5) The Outcomes of Investment in Skills. The following are appended: (1) Skills Matter: Further Results from the Survey of Adult Skills, Tables of results; and (2) Skills Matter: Further Results from the Survey of Adult Skills, Additional tables. Individual chapters contain references and recommendations for further reading. [Additional assistance in the preparation of this report was provided by Vanessa Denis, Paulina Granados Zambrano and François Keslair. For "OECD Skills Outlook 2013: First Results from the Survey of Adult Skills," see ED565655.]