The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI)
The move from education into stable, decent work shapes a young person's earnings and wellbeing for years. Many young people face long searches, informal or temporary jobs, or neither work nor study. This page sets out how school-to-work transitions unfold and stall, how they are measured, and what evidence serves the education and labour authorities, employers and youth organizations involved.
GCRI · In development · service level R0
The school-to-work transition is the passage of young people from education into stable, decent employment. Skills mismatch slows entry, early unemployment scars later careers, work-based learning such as apprenticeships eases the move, and young women, rural youth and young people with disabilities face longer transitions.
Population density, night-time lights, air quality, heat and floods, framed on Southeast Asia; each layer is a dated NASA product.
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NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Natural Earth
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Population density, night-time lights, air quality, heat and floods, framed on Southeast Asia.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date; indicators, not assessments of any place; claim ceiling INTEGRATED.
Layers and dates
The working screen behind this subject: its structure, terms and states. Names are placeholders and values illustrative.
Education to work transition · Labour market A · Year 3
| Clerical support | 59,359 | 0.8 | Substitute | Data operations |
| Machine operators | 45,609 | 0.6 | Mixed | Robot maintenance |
| Care workers | 20,965 | 0.2 | Complement | Upskill |
| Analysts | 11,541 | 0.3 | Complement | Upskill |
Access and professional inclusion. The dossier below sets out how the risk develops, what is measured, where the data come from, how it is modelled and who decides.
When education does not match employers' needs, graduates struggle to find suitable work and employers report shortages at the same time.
Unemployment early in a career lowers later earnings and employment, an effect known as scarring.
Apprenticeships and internships linked to qualifications ease the transition by combining learning with real work.
Young women, rural youth, young people with disabilities and those from poor households face longer transitions.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Apprenticeship | A structured programme combining paid work with training that leads to a recognised qualification. |
| Scarring | The lasting effect of early unemployment on later earnings and employment. |
| Tracer study | A survey that follows graduates to record their employment outcomes. |
Each indicator carries its unit, its cadence, the kind of source behind it and the evidence label a value would carry. No values are shown: a programme supplies them under its own authority.
| Indicator | Unit | Cadence | Source type | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Youth not in employment, education or training | percent of youth | annual | Labour force surveys | OFFICIAL |
| Youth unemployment rate | percent | quarterly | Labour force surveys | OFFICIAL |
| Time to first stable job | months | per survey | School-to-work transition surveys | REPORTED |
| Apprenticeship participation | count | annual | Apprenticeship registers | OFFICIAL |
| Graduates in jobs matching their field | percent | per survey | Graduate tracer studies | REPORTED |
| Informal employment among youth | percent | annual | Labour force surveys | OFFICIAL |
The topic as a computational graph: named sources feed the methods, an evidence review gates the outputs, and the decisions stay with the authorities that hold them.
Fig. 02Nodes carry their type, two metric rows and a state; connectors show what feeds what; dashed frames name the owners; the timeline is the cadence. Design of the pipeline, not a record of a run.
Named public datasets and institutional records, each with its licence class. Sources by agreement are used only under their terms and never republished.
| Source | What it gives | Licence class |
|---|---|---|
| ILO school-to-work transition surveys | Transitions of young people into work | Public, ILO terms |
| ILOSTAT youth labour market indicators | NEET, unemployment and informality | Open, CC BY 4.0 |
| OECD Education at a Glance | Education and labour market outcomes | Public, OECD terms |
| Graduate tracer studies from universities and ministries | Employment of graduates | Licence per publisher |
| Cedefop work-based learning resources | Apprenticeship systems in Europe | Public, EU terms |
Future of Work and Skills prepares evidence. The decisions below are taken by the authorities named, under their own rules, and never by the platform.
| Who decides | The question | Evidence this page serves |
|---|---|---|
| Education and labour ministries | How to strengthen transitions and work-based learning | Transition profiles; evaluations |
| Employers and sector bodies | How to offer apprenticeships and entry jobs | Mismatch and programme evidence |
| Youth organizations | Which barriers to address | Group-specific evidence |
Entering the labour market during a recession or after a long gap can reduce earnings for years, a scarring effect. Employers use qualifications and networks to screen applicants, which favours those with well-connected families. Unpaid internships and informal recruitment can exclude people who cannot afford to work for free or lack contacts.
Systems that combine learning with work, such as apprenticeships and work-integrated learning, tend to ease transitions because they build skills employers value and connections to real jobs. But quality varies, and the occupations offered can reproduce gender and social divides.
Following cohorts into work, using econometrics. Response rates fall over time.
Comparing outcomes across routes. Selection effects are hard to remove.
Testing for discrimination in hiring with matched applications, using social and behavioural science. Studies capture one stage of hiring.
Comparing qualifications and skills with job requirements, using economics and development economics. Different measures give different answers.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.