The NSD is a cost-effective tool which collates all available up-to-date information on the supply and demand of skills in Ireland and on the identification and anticipation of skills needs.  This information is used by relevant policy makers to ensure that people are equipped with the right skills for the jobs of today and tomorrow; as such it led to policy decisions aimed at enhancing labour and skills supply and inter alia, tackling youth and long-term unemployment. 

The NSD is in line with the Europe 2020 strategy and in particular with the flagship initiatives “Youth on the Move” and “An agenda for new skills and new jobs”, as well as with Employment Guideline 6 on enhancing labour supply, skills and competencies, and develop capacities to better anticipate and meet the rapidly changing needs of dynamic labour markets. 

More specifically, the NSD is relevant to four key areas of employment policy:

• Education and training: the NSD gathers data on the supply of skills across all education levels (with a focus on further and higher education) for the labour market. This data, when matched with an analysis of the demand for skills, is used to inform education provision into the future
• Youth: the NSD-based reports highlight the lack of work-related experience as one of the barriers in gaining employment
• Long-term unemployed: outputs from the NSD allow for an examination of the profile of this target group (age, previous employment, if any, and level of education) which facilitates policy makers to make targeted interventions
• Active labour market policies: the NSD supports better functioning of the labour market by providing an evidence base for active labour market policies

• A closer focus on the needs of the economy (present and future), ensuring that employment supports and education/training are labour market relevant; therefore, anticipating the changing composition of skills required rises in importance
• A much stronger focus on the effective disbursement of limited public funding in the context of skills and training programmes, with an enhanced focus on return on investment based on evidence

• address skills shortages in a tight labour market
• identify job opportunities in the downturn
• as the economy improved, to identify the areas where signs of growth were occurring
• guide education and training provision in the context of budgetary constraints 

• Lack of systematic data: Prior to the set-up of the NSD, there was no national entity which gathered all available data on the supply and demand of skills; labour market information was disjointed, unstructured and therefore unsuitable for comparison purposes and it was difficult to outline where skills shortages were occurring
• Skill mismatches: by gathering, analysing, and matching data from the NSD it became possible to identify and address mismatches between supply and demand of skills
• Evidence based policy: the NSD became a hub which contained all relevant data necessary to meet an increased demand for evidence based policy decisions across government departments and education and training bodies
•  Anticipating skills needs: the NSD extended its relevance by facilitating the forecasting exercise aimed at anticipating future skills needs; it was also utilised to support the development of an evidence-based national skills strategy 

The main aim of the NSD is to collate and manage a database which contains all relevant data in relation to the supply and demand of skills in order to identify areas of skills shortages and skills mismatches. As such, it provides a platform for timely analysis and forecasting of the labour market at occupational level.

• Collation of data: Data related to employment/unemployment, employment permits, both private and public vacancies, recruitment agency survey, job announcements and jobseekers; education data across all levels of education, including both enrolments and outputs, along with graduate destination is collated.
• Ensuring consistency and uniformity required for relational database: In order to unify all information received from various data sources, all data in the NSD are coded using either Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) whereby skills are approximated by occupations, or the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED), whereby skills are approximated by courses.

Outputs:

• Sectoral studies: the EGFSN have produced numerous studies utilising the SLMRU’s analyses of data held in the NSD to inform policy makers of skills needs across sectors such as ICT, finance, health, biopharma, construction, manufacturing and hospitality.
•  Annual publications including National Skills Bulletin, Monitoring Ireland’s Skills Supply, Regional Labour Markets Bulletin, Vacancy Overview
• Skills forecasting: e.g. Occupational Employment Projections 2020
• Surveys: Recruitment Agency Survey conducted biannually, Follow Up Survey on FET graduates
• Regional skills profiles: enhancing skills needs identification and  provision at a regional level
• Career guidance portal: a SOLAS/EGFSN careers portal http://lmi.fas.ie/search.aspx was established to provide a detailed employment outlook by occupation, based on NSD outputs

Outcomes:
By gathering and collating relevant data, the NSD was in a position to identify skills mismatches and shortages in the Irish labour market.  This intelligence was used to inform a number of policy decisions including the following:

• Skilled migration: the analysis of data from the NSD has a crucial role in the compiling of the Highly Skilled Eligible Occupations List for managing skilled migration into Ireland (list was standardised using the Standard Occupational Classification system (SOC 2010) as recommended by the SLMRU to be aligned with outputs from the NSD).
• Informing the National Skills Strategy: the analysis produced from the NSD provided an integral part in the formulation of the National Skills Strategy for Ireland.
• Provided rationale for the establishment of Regional Skills Fora (overseen by the Department of Education and Skills): these fora are envisaged as a vehicle for co-operation between education and training providers and enterprise at a regional level with the aim of achieving closer alignment between the skills needs of enterprise and local provision
• Labour Market activation policies: where job opportunities were identified from the outputs from the NSD, labour market activation initiatives were developed such as JobBridge (the National Internship Scheme), Momentum (an initiative aimed at long-term unemployed people to gain the skills needed to access work in areas where job opportunities were identified based on outputs from the NSD) and Springboard (offering free higher education courses up-skilling unemployed people for employment in high value sectors).