An attempt of monitoring the relationship of initial VET to employment in Austria is reported, using new LFS-data. The background is a strong VET system, which must govern its relationship to employment. The rationale is not a narrow concept of skills demand or matching, but an open conception of the VET-employment relationship which, however, should be deliberately governed: goals and objectives of programmes should be specified within broader degrees of freedom by governance decisions at different levels. Understanding the empirical relationship between supply and demand is an important input for decision-making (Lassnigg 2006, 2004a). In the past no regular and timely information about employment of graduates from initial VET-specialisations was available. As the new ISCED-study-fields have been added to the ISCED-levels, regular information about specialisations is available with the LFS since 2004. The purpose of the study is to make use of this information, by setting up a monitoring system about the relationship between the VET-output and employment. First a meaningful classification of VET supply (upper and post-secondary, higher education) has been constructed; second a set of indicators has been developed and explored with available data. The theoretical approach is constructivist. The development of indicators should not be driven by normative conceptions of the ET-employment relationship but by a social model of knowledge production including the various stakeholders (ET supply and demand, social partners, PES, statistics, R&D) to create networking and common reflection about the issues and the possibilities to tackle them. Thus the purpose of monitoring is to create awareness about what goes on empirically, as basis for reflection about the goals and objectives of programmes and their practical implementation (Lassnigg 2004b).

The methodology used is rather simple, by creating a multi-faceted set of detailed indicators, and summary indexes to provide an overview. The monitoring should produce signals about risks and opportunities across the whole supply spectrum, comparing the empirical results for the (groups of) programmes. The results are not meant to produce „hard evidence“, but rather empirical indications which should draw attention to certain areas of risk, in order to decide about further inquiries. The agreed classification of ET supply includes 44 categories of the different levels according to the Austrian structure (17 apprenticeship including „masters“; 7 lower level secondary VET schools; 6 upper level secondary VET colleges; 2 post secondary; 10 higher education; 2 without specialisation). The indicators include three sections (demography and gender; employment, unemployment and income; competences, occupations and trades), each with subdivisions. The resulting 25 indicators (11+8+6) are reported separately, and have been combined for summary indices due to each of the three sections, and one overall. The methodology has been rather simple so far, taking thresholds for +/– dummies, and summarizing them with intuitive weighting assumptions.

The empirical assessment has firstly given rather severe problems with the LFS (sample size, answering); secondly results show an interesting picture indicating expansion in areas with weak demand, thirdly there is scope for methodological improvement, and for exploring the potential for a comparative application in different systems, according to European priorities.