Geneva, 15 September 2026 — The International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) convened a technical workshop to advance work on a feasibility study for an international reference classification of occupations by skill and qualification requirements, undertaken in the context of the G20.
The virtual workshop brought together technical experts from India, Germany, Brazil, France, Flanders, the European Union, the ILO and the OECD to review and refine a proposed operational common language for key concepts used across national and regional occupational frameworks.
The discussion focused on six core concepts: skills, knowledge, tools and technologies, regulatory requirements and licences, qualifications, and work context. The proposed common language is intended to support cross-framework referencing, enabling existing national and regional definitions to be compared and mapped to common reference concepts without replacing those definitions.
Participants also discussed the proposed mapping logic and methodological principles for extracting concepts from existing frameworks and validating them through expert consultation. The workshop forms part of a modified Delphi process, with successive rounds of technical feedback planned to refine and finalize the operational common language and mapping logic for the feasibility study.
The workshop represents a further step in international technical cooperation on improving the comparability of occupational information and strengthening the evidence base for understanding skills and qualification requirements across different labour market and occupational systems.