Leiden, Netherlands, 28 July 2026 – Regular updates to vocational training curricula can help reduce skills mismatch by bringing what workers are taught closer to what employers demand, a new SkiLMeeT research finds.
The report, “Technological Change and Skill Gaps,” studies the dual vocational training system in Germany, where vocationally trained workers account for around 70% of the workforce. Drawing on the near-universe of German dual-system vocational curricula linked to online job advertisements from 2017 to 2025, the authors develop a novel ESCO-based measure of curriculum–job ad mismatch. By comparing the skills specified in vocational curricula with those requested in vacancies, and exploiting the timing of curriculum revisions, they estimate the effect of updating training content on the alignment between education and labour-market demand.
The results show that curriculum updates significantly reduce skills mismatch. On average, an update lowers the share of skills demanded by employers but not supplied in the relevant curriculum by about 4 percentage points compared with similar occupations that do not experience an update in the same period.
“Curriculum reform is one of the clearest policy levers we have for keeping vocational education aligned with labour market demand,” said Ulrich Zierahn-Weilage, professor at the Utrecht University School of Economics and co-author of the study and. “Our findings show that when training content is updated, the skills taught to new cohorts move closer to what firms are actually looking for.”
The study also finds that mismatch gradually increases as curricula age, suggesting that training content becomes less aligned with employer needs as technologies and work organisation evolve. This points to the importance of regular monitoring of emerging skill needs, including through job ad data, as an input into curriculum design.
The findings are especially relevant for occupations exposed to technological change. Curriculum updates reduce mismatch in both high- and low-technology occupations, but occupations more exposed to digital breakthrough innovations need more frequent updates to maintain a similar quality of skill alignment.
“The challenge is not that technology-exposed occupations require fundamentally different reforms, but that they need to be updated more often to keep pace with changing skill requirements,” said Ulrich Zierahn-Weilage.
The report builds on previous SkiLMeeT research showing that updated vocational curricula can raise wages, particularly in technology-exposed occupations. Taken together, the findings suggest that curriculum reform is not only an education-policy issue, but also a labour-market tool for reducing skill gaps and helping workers benefit from technological change.
Lukas Jonas, Anna Salomons, Cäcilia vom Baur, and Ulrich Zierahn-Weilage (2026). Technological Change and Skill Gaps, SkiLMeeT Deliverable D4.10.
Read the report here.
