Labour Market Information for Career Development: Pivotal or Peripheral?
Labour market information (LMI) represents a core component of the knowledge required for career development interventions. It distinguishes the work of career development practitioners from other kinds of helping. Yet practitioners often find it challenging to keep this knowledge current and mediate it effectively to different audiences. Career theory helps identify a variety of possible assumptions that might underpin the use of LMI in practice. Although information and communications technology plays an increasingly important role in accessing and disseminating reliable and robust LMI, research indicates that face-to-face interventions with career professionals continue to have the greatest impact with clients. Consequently, referring clients to LMI online seems unlikely to maximize positive outcomes because expert mediation by professionals of the meaning of the information for their own particular situation is frequently necessary. Indeed, professionalism, a concept with which most career development practitioners identify, demands that minimum standards are maintained, including practice based on expert, current LMI. In this chapter, ways of enhancing the effectiveness of LMI as an integral part of overall career interventions are discussed.