Measuring the Specificity of Occupational Training Curricula and Labor Market Flexibility – An Economic Perspective on the Curriculum Development of VET Occupations

In this paper we analyze the training curricula of VET (vocational education and training) occupations using detailed data on learned skills from official trainings regulations. We explore how differences in the skill bundles of occupational curricula can be measured and how such differences affect graduates' long-term labor market outcomes. Based on Lazear’s skill weights approach, we develop novel measures for the skill distance between occupations and the specificity of occupations. We find that workers who change between occupations with very dissimilar skill weights are faced with lower wages after the change compared to workers who change to similar occupations. Additionally, workers who are trained in occupations with more specific skill bundles have a smaller probability of an occupational change. Our results shed light on the policy question of how the specificity of curricula affects the long-term flexibility outcomes of VET workers.