Competencies of the Spanish population, employment and productivity: Analysis of PIAAC 2013

Objectives

To know and know-how are very important assets for individuals and societies in a knowledge-based and increasingly complex world. Promoting the development and proper use of these skills is vital to efficiently use the available human resources and enhance economic growth, welfare and social progress. In the last two decades, Spain’s educational and productive results have presented worrying signs that our skills are limited in both directions, in view of the amount of school drop-outs, the PISA report results, the rates of employment and productivity or the use of human capital.

The key to accurately measure the impact of these problematic indicators is to assess the competencies of the Spanish population, such as, knowledge, abilities and skills needed to deal with situations that arise in everyday life, especially economic and labour related problems. The OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) is the most important international initiative in this respect. Just released in October 2013, it presents the results for 24 countries, including Spain. The PIAAC assesses the proficiency of adults in literacy, numeracy and problem solving in technology-rich environments.

The PIAAC data are extraordinarily rich: more than 150,000 adults surveyed, of which more than 6,000 are Spanish, including questions about their education and employment trajectories, socio-demographic profile and economic and social behavior. The data allows to address issues of great interest to some currently open debates in Spain: the level of skills acquired by the population, differences of level between groups, their relationship with the educational system, their evolution during their professional life and their impact on employment, productivity, technological capacity, economic growth and social welfare.

This BBVA Foundation-Ivie Seminar will assess the first results of PIAAC 2013 (see http://www.oecd.org/site/piaac and http://www.mecd.gob.es/inee) and analyze the following issues:

• Competencies of the Spanish population compared with other countries
• The influence of education on the population’s skills and intergenerational differences
• The influence of competencies on labor trajectories and work performed (and vice versa) and the importance of the productive fabric and the selection criteria used by human resources in the development of human capital
• The economic, labour and social effects of competencies

The seminar is aimed at the teaching and research community, those responsible of socioeconomic development policies and educational, employment and business institutions, specialists in human resources and economics of education and all those interested in analyzing the role of education in the development of a new productive model.

Programme

9:15–9:30 Apertura y presentación

9:30–11:30 Planteamiento y resultados generales de PIAAC

“PIAAC: Qué es, y cómo interpretarlo”
Luis Sanz San Miguel, INEE

“Evaluación de Competencias de Adultos (PIAAC): Resultados internacionales”
Marta Encinas-Martín, OCDE

“Algunos resultados del informe PIACC en España”
Ismael Sanz Labrador, INEE

11:30–12:00 Pausa – café

11:30–14:00: Competencias, empleo y productividad

“Efectos económicos de la educación en España: una aproximación con datos PIAAC”
Lorenzo Serrano, Universitat de València e Ivie
Laura Hernández, Ivie

“Educación, experiencia laboral y habilidades cognitivas”
Juan Francisco Jimeno, Banco de España

“Educación, conocimientos y perfiles ocupacionales”
Laura Hernández, Ivie
Francisco Pérez, Universitat de València e Ivie

Coordinators

Francisco Pérez, Universitat de València e Ivie
Laura Hernández, Ivie

Participants

Marta Encinas-Martín, OCDE
Laura Hernández, Ivie
Juan Francisco Jimeno, Banco de España
Francisco Pérez, Universitat de València e Ivie
Ismael Sanz Labrador, INEE
Luis Sanz San Miguel, INEE
Lorenzo Serrano, Universitat de València e Ivie

Venue

Fundación Universidad-Empresa, Adeit
Plaza Virgen de la Paz, 3
46001 Valencia