Workshop on basic skills of the working age population in Hungary

Workshop

On 8 December, we held an online workshop with T-Tudok on three studies using the OECD PIAAC survey, commissioned by the National Vocational and Adult Education Office.

The results on skills of the adult population were presented by Judit Lannert. Márton Csillag summarised the key messages of the analysis by BI researchers on the impact of skills on labour market outcomes. The workshop was moderated by Ágota Scharle. Qubit reported on the workshop in detail (in Hungarian).

The OECD PIAAC measures the skills of the adult population in a comparable way across the developed world, with Hungary participating for the first time in 2017-2018. This survey provides a much more accurate and detailed picture of the actual skills of the population than the number of school classes completed.

Our findings show that in 2018, the reading comprehension, numeracy and problem-solving skills (demonstrated via computer use) of roughly 90,000 registered unemployed people were at a level so low that they did not even reach the skill level of public workers. Of these, 35 thousand are under 35 years old, i.e. they have 30 more years till reaching retirement age.

You can read more about our findings in the executive summary of the study published in 2021. For more detail on the project see http://budapestinstitute.eu/index.php/projects/datasheet/nszfh_piaac/en

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