and Vocational Education

What skills do employers want? How do these skills match those that youth and adults are developing through their school and work experiences? How can education and training programs prepare in-dividuals to enter a rapidly changing workplace? These and other questions are examined in this Digest that explores skills currently needed for employment. Since 1986 the authors of no fewer than six ERIC Digests and one Trends and Issues Alert have sifted through an increasingly prolific literature base to investigate the evolving topic of employability skills. The dual challenges of competing in a world market and rapid tech-nological advancements have necessitated a redesign of the work-place into an innovative work environment known as the high-per-formance workplace. This environment requires a behavior and orientation toward work that go beyond step-by-step task perfor-mance. It expects workers at all levels to solve problems, create way