Further Training and Company-Level Pacts for Employment in Germany

This paper aims at investigating whether or not and to what extent company-level pacts for employment and competitiveness (CLPs) have an impact on the accumulation of human capital. The effect of CLPs on further training is analyzed utilizing the IAB Establishment Panel data of the years 2003 to 2007. CLPs are agreements between firms’ management and their respective workforce that are characterized by reduced wages or prolonged working hours in exchange for employment guarantees or investment programs, such as further training. CLPs not only explicitly contain clauses concerning further training, but also increase employment stability and may increase the firms’ incentives for human capital investments, due to the employees’ wage concessions. In order to test this hypothesis we apply parametric as well as semiparametric cross-section time-series regression models. However, our findings suggest that CLPs do not exert positive causal effects on human capital formation as measured by further training incidence and intensity variables.