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A nearly twofold fall of birth rate is likely to lead to a major labor shortage in Estonia over the next ten years. The current project focuses on regulating this situation concerning the professionals as the most important component of the workforce. The first year¿s main task of the project is to fix the state of the employment of the professionals on the Estonian labor market. The result of an institution-based study will be a survey of the employment of the professionals and the application of the findings in the structural analysis of higher education. The second year will see the prediction of training labor through different educational paths for birth cohorts 1985-2002. We will rely on the research team¿s earlier work of life path studies of generations born in 1948 and 1965 that have significantly analyzed factors influencing educational and work careers. Among variables modifying scenarios we include the needs of the labor market and the resources necessary for raising the output quality of respective educational level. The third part will consider the potential of retiring people on the labor market in conditions of serious labor deficit. A follow-up survey of the cohort born in the late 1940s in cooperation with the University of Cologne enables to receive important knowledge about the readiness of this generation to find further employment in the Estonian economy. |