6 Workplace Agreements; information on Federal and State awards
7 Workplace visits
8 Business cards
9 Industry Associations
10 Employee Associations
11 Chambers of Commerce
12 Professional Associations
13 State government departments of employment and training
14 Newspaper recruitment advertisements
15 Community organizations
16 University and other research facilities
17 Surveys
18 Client interview
19 Focus groups
20 Individual research
21 Questioning during marketing activities to employers
22 Use of libraries
23 Attendance at meetings
24 Networking
4. Conducting labor market Assessment.
Labor market assessment may be conducted by:
1 Distributing a survey instrument to potential employers, either the entire population or a representative sample; and/or
2 Convening a focus group to collect information.
Local labor market assessments have to carried out by the TVET institutions, while
regional labor market are assessed by regional TVET agencies following the economic corridors of the region. National economic development strategies should
also be referred to during assessing the market. For example, the industrial and urban development strategy focuses on labor intensive marketing/ production systems. Therefore, regional and local TVET need to check if their training provision mainly targets lower level occupations, based on this information.
The information payback of a survey is valuable because of the number of employers you may reach. It is necessary to be realistic, however, about the effort and cost that goes into such a survey. Depending on the size of your market, your survey might be mailed or e-mailed to several hundred potential employers. It is important to identify the appropriate person to receive the survey. In most cases, it would be thesupervisor of the occupation in which you are collecting the labor market information. Having the name of a specific person to complete the survey will tend to increase your response rate. Do not send the survey to the human resources department. If you plan to send the survey in the mail, be sure to include a cover letter explaining the purpose of the survey as well as a self-addressed stamped envelope to return the completed survey. Someone must be available to tabulate the survey results, whether by hand or by processing scan able answer sheets. The percentage of returned surveys can be low. Because of these challenges, surveying is best handled by institutions that provide administrative and financial support. Focus groups may provide a less complete picture of the local market, but are easier to plan. You may arrange a meeting with ten to twelve industry leaders whose reputations indicate they are knowledgeable about the occupational field as well as about the community. The survey items are the focus of discussion. Be sure to thoroughly plan what information you want to collect during the focus group meeting. One advantage of conducting a focus group rather than a survey is you tend to collect more detailed information, and information you may not have considered that is useful in developing the training program. The main cost of the focus group is refreshments which can range from dessert to lunch, depending on your resources. An additional bonus is that some of those attending may become advisory committee members, who eventually would help you develop curricular goals and objectives for the training program.