Employability Skills Framework

Employability skills are general skills that are necessary for success in the labor market at all employment levels and in all sectors. These skills have a number of names— soft skills, workforce readiness skills, career readiness skills— but they all speak to the same set of core skills that employers want. The Employability Skills Framework is a one-stop resource for information and tools to inform the instruction and assessment of employability skills.

The Employability Skills Framework was compiled by the Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE) at the U.S. Department of Education to outline the personal and interpersonal skills necessary for success in all sectors of the labor market.