The Australian Skills Classification complements the Australia and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO). Basically, it \u201coffers a common language of skills, enabling stakeholders to identify and articulate skills using a comprehensive and universal taxonomy.\u201d It\u2019s a living, breathing, dynamic thing, though, and will be expanded and amended during its lifetime based on information from stakeholders and other data. In addition, it:<\/p>\n

\u201cidentifies common and transferable skills between occupations, and reveals the connections within, and across, occupations at the level of skills.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s built around three elements: (1) core competencies, which are sometimes called \u2018soft skills\u2019 or \u2018employability skills\u2019, (2) specialist tasks: that is, work activities a person undertakes specific to a job and (3) technology tools \u201csuch as software or hardware, used within an occupation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Classification identifies 10 core competencies: common skills used in all occupations, 1925 specialist tasks: detailed work activities required within a job and 88 technology tools, which include a \u2018\u2019technology, such as software or hardware, associated with a job.\u201d These are focused on the attributes required for 600 occupations in Australia.<\/p>\n

The classification system leads to a series of occupational profiles and skills clusters and better enable job matching “by systematically linking the skills required in one occupation to another.\u201d <\/p>\n

Basically, skills clusters \u201cshow how skill types are distributed across occupations.\u201d And that\u2019s important because they can \u201cenhance the conceptualisation of skills portfolios across the workforce, industry or business and expand our understanding of skills beyond traditional labour market information.\u201d They also help to identify and describe common and transferable skills across occupations.<\/p>\n

They \u201cprovide a way to plan career pathways around in-demand skills rather than occupations which may change over time.\u201d And that\u2019s a good thing.<\/p>\n