Digital competence, jobs and ANZSCO

Digital agency is the collective ability of a person to be “able to use technologies for self-identified purposes and to be able to modify, develop, and therefore control and manage their use” in their lives. This consists of three parts: the individual’s digital competence, their digital confidence, and their digital accountability (Hirvonen et al., 2021, p. 7). Digital competence is the range of digital skills each individual possesses, “the ability to safely and effectively navigate the digital world” (Passey, 2018, p. 428); digital confidence rates how independent each individual is in being able to surmount problems encountering new issues as they arise, or being able “to use skill and knowledge levels to navigate other digital domains in a ‘transferable’ manner” (p. 430); and digital accountability is defined as “digital responsibility for oneself and for others regarding one’s digital actions; knowledge of the digital world and its ethical issues; understanding concerns and ensuring security and privacy; and understanding the impact of our digital activities” (p. 430).

A study completed in February of 2023 showed that 92% of 2022’s jobs require digital skills (Bergson-Shilcock & Taylor, 2023), or digital competence (Ala-Mutka, 2011). It is estimated that a million New Zealanders currently in work are in need of digital training for the jobs they are currently doing (AlphaBeta, 2022). , In an attempt to discover the strategy of New Zealand employers to redress this, a survey of found four preferred strategies, in preferential order: hire digitally skilled staff (77%); train current staff (informally 76%; formally 70%); or automate the work (46%; Kantar Public, 2023). Further, rapidly-improving AI seems an increasingly attractive patch for labour shortfalls, likely to continue to put pressure on our workforce’s existing digital competence levels.

Almost all jobs today require digital competence: caregivers track patient data using tablets; teachers and teacher aides use apps, computers and cloud storage for teaching resources and administration; businesses track, order, and sell products and services using digital systems. Even the smallest rural garage uses computers to order parts, and to issue Warrants of Fitness, COFs, and registrations, while New Zealand has one of the highest levels of online government services in the world (where services are online only, known as ‘digital enforcement’, Andrade & Techatassanasoontorn, 2020) . Yet, surprisingly, the ANZSCO job detail sheets which we are still using as a framework to deliver services against do not specifically mention digital competence requirements, despite being repeatedly reported to the departments using these that they are excessively dated.

A paragraph on the ANZSCO site potentially explains why the sheets are silent on digital competence: “ANZSCO is largely based on the 2001 labour market. The Australian government recently announced new funding over 4 years for the ABS to undertake a comprehensive update of ANZSCO (for delivery by December 2024) and commence an ongoing maintenance program in 2025” (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2022) : the job detail sheets are dated because they are 20 years old... and have not been refreshed. 

The Tertiary Education Commission is in the process of redrawing some 400 'common' roles for use on the new Careers New Zealand website, Tahatū, to be launched in 2024. The website pulls live data from a number of differing sources to inform job seekers and career practitioners, including the two major job boards used in Aotearoa, TradeMe and Seek, and the job outlook work of MBIE. It will be interesting to see how this stacks up against the updated Australian ANZSCO data when it starts to come online in 2025.

Sam

References:

Ala-Mutka, K. (2011). Mapping digital competence: towards a conceptual understanding. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, Document number JRC67075 - 2011. ftp://ftp.jrc.es/users/publications/public/JRC67075_TN.pdf

AlphaBeta. (2022). Building digital skills for the changing workforce in Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) [report]. https://pages.awscloud.com/APAC-public-DL-AlphaBeta-Digital-Skills-Report-EN-2022-learn.html

Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2022). Review of the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations [ANZSCO]. https://consult.abs.gov.au/standards-and-classifications/review-of-anzsco/

Bergson-Shilcock, A., & Taylor, R. (2023). Closing the Digital Skills Divide: Literacy: The payoff for workers, business and the economy [report]. National Skills Coalition. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED626621.pdf

Hirvonen, H., Tammelin, M., Hänninen, R., & Wouters, E. J. M. (2021). Digital Transformations in Care for Older People: Critical perspectives. Routledge.

Kantar Public. (2023). 2023 NZ Future of Work Survey: Topline findings from a survey of large employers [report for MBIE]. https://www.mbie.govt.nz/dmsdocument/27300-the-future-of-jobs-survey-kantar-public

Passey, D, Shonfeld, M., Appleby, L., Judge, M., Saito, T. and Smith, A. (2018). Digital agency: Empowering equity in and through education. Technology, Knowledge & Learning, 23(3), 425–439. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10758-018-9384-x