The Demand and Supply of Work-Related Training : Evidence from Four Countries

This paper documents aspects of demand for and supply of training in Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States. The first part presents descriptive information about the initiation, financing, provision and methods of work-related training. In all four countries, firms provide financial support for training which is initiated by the worker or which is given outside the firm. This suggests that firms pay for general training. In Switzerland employees occupy a more prominent position in initiating and financing training than their counterparts in the United States and the other countries. The second part of the paper exploits information from workers who wanted to receive training but did not do so to disentangle demand and supply factors in training. Results indicate that different training levels by level of formal schooling can be attributed to worker preferences