Firm Productivity, Workforce Age, and Vocational Training in Austria

Controlling for training effort at the firm level as well as for firm-specific characteristics we assess the relation between the firm’s productivity level and the age composition of its employees using a matched employer-employee data set for Austria. Our aim is to test whether the hump-shaped age profile of the employees’ age structure on labour productivity that we found in previous studies is robust once we control for training intensity. We find a simultaneous, negative productivity effect of the share of young workers and old workers on labour productivity in sample of small as well as in sample of large firms. Furthermore it turns out that training intensity is an important variable for labour productivity