Training and the Private Sector: International Comparisons

Abstract

How can today's workforce keep pace with an increasingly competitive global economy? As new technologies rapidly transform the workplace, employee requirements are changing and workers must adapt to different working conditions. This volume compares evidence on the returns from worker training in the United States, Germany, France, Britain, Japan, Norway and the Netherlands. The authors focus on Germany's widespread, formal apprenticeship programmes; the US system of learning-by-doing; Japan's low employee turnover and extensive company training; and Britain's government-led and school-based training schemes. The evidence shows that training in the workplace is more effective than training in schools. Moreover, even when US firms spend as much on training as other countries do, their employees may still be less skilled than workers in Europe or Japan. This text points to training programmes in Germany, Japan, and other developed countries as models for creating a workforce in the United States that can compete more successfully in the economy of the 20th century.