Graduates on the labor market: Formal and informal post-school training investments

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to obtain an understanding of which factors determine whether an university graduate receives formal on-the-job training or not and the amount of informal training received. Using a cross-sectional survey of Spanish graduates, this paper confirms that the informal training graduates receive in their jobs is more intense among doctors and lawyers – professions that require a more extensive period of learning before reaching the required level of skills. Likewise, those graduates that hold jobs requiring greater know-how than they can actually provide (infra-educated) also receive more informal training. In the case of formal training, the likelihood of taking part in in-house training programs is greater among civil servants and the employees of large private firms. However, the belief that workers with higher ability (a positive signal of a worker’s trainability) should have higher chances of receiving employer-provided formal training is not confirmed in this study.