This chapter analyzes Ethiopia’s national ecology of workforce competency development through a Realist-Constructivist framework, drawing on the richest and most comprehensive datasets among the four surveyed countries, which encompass FDI and domestic firms, TVET institutions, trainers, and students. By comparing parallel micro-ecologies shaped by distinct econo-productive mechanisms, the chapter demonstrates how employers’ skill demands, training practices, and evaluation criteria diverge sharply between export-oriented and domestic firms and between employers and TVET trainers. Using cognitive, practical, and noncognitive skills assessments, it reveals that labor market rewards are driven primarily by vocation-specific and practical skills, while cognitive test performance reflects different developmental trajectories. Analyses of trainers’, employers’, and students’ perceptions show that “skills gaps” arise from epistemological mismatches. At the same time, multi-dimensional analysis of Ethiopian national ecology revealed that competence does not reside solely within individuals, but it emerges from dynamic interactions among actors’ perceptions, institutional structures, and the socio-economic mechanisms of their micro-ecologies. The chapter also identifies conditions under which TVET contributes positively to skill formation. Overall, it illustrates how Realist-Constructivism enables an abductive understanding of a complex competency formation mechanism of a country, using Ethiopia as a case.