Employment-Related Further Training in a Dynamic Labour Market

In recent decades, accelerating technological progress and increasing international trade have not only made labour markets more dynamic but also steadily changed the demand for skills and knowledge. As a result, workers have had to continuously invest in training to update their skills if they want to avoid long-lasting negative consequences for their careers. This project uses data from the adult cohort of the German National Education Panel Study (NEPS) to investigate how workers’ training participation has evolved in dynamic labour markets exposed to technological change and increasing international trade. The study analyses the relationship between workplace automation and employment-related training and shows that the training participation of workers whose jobs were highly exposed to automation was much lower than that of workers whose jobs were less exposed. Moreover, results suggest that employers’ financial support explains the lion’s share of the training gap. Consistent with the new training literature, firms are the main force behind further training investments.