From Educational Attainment to Adaptive Employability: How Changing Skill Demands and Institutional Conditions Reshape Employment Transitions in Transforming Labor Markets
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Abstract
This paper examines the evolving relationship between education, skills, and employability in labor markets increasingly shaped by technological change, occupational restructuring, and unequal access to employment opportunities. The analysis focuses on three complementary dimensions: education and skill formation under changing labor demand; digitalization, reskilling, and capability development; and employability, inclusion, and labor-market transitions. The literature shows that formal educational attainment remains important but is insufficient to explain labor-market outcomes when qualification mismatch, skill mismatch, and changing occupational requirements affect the productive use of human capital. Technological developments, including automation, artificial intelligence, and digitalization, further increase the importance of adaptable, transferable, and continuously renewed competencies. At the same time, social and non-cognitive skills, professional networks, work experience, and access to information play an expanding role in employment transitions. The analysis also highlights persistent inequalities linked to gender, social background, institutional access, and labor-market segmentation. Overall, the findings suggest that sustainable employability requires a combination of relevant education, lifelong learning, adaptable competencies, effective transition mechanisms, and institutional conditions that facilitate the conversion of skills into productive employment. Education and employment policies should therefore be increasingly coordinated with labor-demand conditions and mechanisms supporting mobility, matching, and inclusion.
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