Train the worst or train the best? The determinants of employer-sponsored training in five European countries

The quality of human capital is a key competitive asset for EU firms to prosper in a globalised economy and provide high-quality jobs to their employees. Continuing education and training are therefore crucial for tuning, maintaining and developing employees’ skills and capabilities, especially in a fast-changing world. Given the substantial direct and indirect costs of training, employers are expected to focus training provision on employees affected by skill deficits and organisation members with the strongest potential in terms of skill development. To answer the question on employers’ capability to target the employees who would most benefit from training this paper investigates whether a measure of employee-job fit and a measure of employee potential are significant determinants of participation in employer-sponsored training undertaken for job-related reasons. The empirical analysis, extended to five large EU countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK), is based on OECD PIAAC Survey.