Hello NCL colleagues, So nice to see your faces onscreen in today's meeting! I've been meaning to send this along to the listserv and now seems like a good time to do it. The National Association of Workforce Boards podcast interviewed Dr. Paul Harrington recently and it's well worth a listen next time you are walking your dog or doing laundry. It's 40 minutes long: https://soundcloud.com/workforcecentral/e98-the-economy-and-the-emerging-workforce-challenges-and-opportunities-in-the-age-of-covid-19 As many of you know, Paul is terrifically smart, straight-talking and peppery economist. The podcast interview is very wide-ranging and covers topics including youth unemployment, the pandemic's effects on the economy, employer priorities in hiring, and much more. Perhaps of most note, though is that he briefly mentions his work on PIAAC data. To summarize, his perspective is essentially that labor market and earnings analyses often place too much weight on educational attainment per se, and not enough on the actual skills/competencies that education is supposed to be a proxy for. More on that research here: https://nebhe.org/journal/educational-attainment-foundational-skills-and-worker-earnings/ -Amanda -- *Amanda Bergson-Shilcock*, Senior Fellow *National Skills Coalition* Pronouns: she/her/hers 1250 Connecticut Ave, NW Suite 200 Washington, D.C. 20036 215-285-2860 (mobile) *www.nationalskillscoalition.org <http://www.nationalskillscoalition.org/>* [image: GuideStar Member]