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People invest £7.3 billion a year and £55 billion worth of time in learning. This is more than the Government and employers invest in learning and skills, but there are stark inequalities between groups. This report provides the most detailed snapshot seen of which groups of adults are investing in learning, and how much, and lays bare stark inequalities in learning. It calls for a new Lifelong Learning Entitlement to simplify the overly complex system, boost participation in learning by those currently most likely to miss out and boost the UK economy.

Based on analysis of Learning and Work Institute's long-running Adult Participation in Learning Survey, the research finds that younger people are three times more likely to participate in learning than older people and also invest three times as much per year (£3,900 v £1,300). This lower investment by older people is a problem given longer working lives and economic change require people to update their skills more often through life. The same is true of investment by region and country. People in London (£1,400) invest more than double per person compared to the South East (£565) and Scotland (£624).

This could put 'levelling up' at risk given the impact learning has on economic growth and individual opportunity. The data come after previous L&W research showed that Government investment in skills is set to be £1 billion lower in 2025 compared to 2010, and that employer investment in training per employee has fallen 28 per cent since 2005. Taken together, they suggest the UK is under-investing in skills and learning, and risks staying stuck in the middle of the pack by international standards. This would put future growth and prosperity at risk.

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In the UK, nearly 40 per cent of adults now go on to higher education (HE). Yet university is not the only place of learning beyond the school gates. There is a wide range of education and training undertaken by adults, from vocational courses at local colleges to ongoing on-the-job training and apprenticeships. This post-18 education and training receives less attention than HE, but is crucial to developing the skills needed by the UK's workforce and to boosting economic productivity. There is a range of potential policy levers available to a government wishing to encourage employers and individuals to invest in post-18 education and training.

In this report, we focus on the funding and financing of adult education and training in England. This encompasses four policy areas: the public funding of adult education (which covers funding for post-18 further education), the non-HE student loan system, apprenticeship policy, and the taxation of training. We do not cover other areas in detail, such as the regulation of training, although these are unquestionably important to the skills system. We begin by setting out how adult education and training participation has changed over time and how the experience in the UK compares with that in other countries. We draw lessons from the history of skills policy. We then analyse each of the four different policy levers in England through the lens of the trade-off between costs and benefits. The report concludes by setting out the lessons that can be drawn from this analysis and some of the government's options for reform.

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The public, politicians and policymakers are talking about productivity - the only way a country can improve living standards and workers' their take home pay. This report examines the contribution skills policy has made in recent decades to address the UK 'productivity gap'. Based on quantitative analysis and interviews with leading education experts, including former policy advisers, the authors outline why the UK has been 'running to stand still' when it comes to upgrading skills and qualification levels in the workforce. Despite strong ministerial leadership, including the well-intended efforts of civil servants and delivery bodies, none of the fundamental metrics appear to have shifted in a significantly positive direction since 2008. As the UK prepares for a general election before January 2025, the report provides critical insights into the main skills and policy challenges facing the next government.

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'Reimagining the workforce: building smart, sustainable, safe public transport' is a collaborative research project between the Department of Transport (DoT), the Rail Manufacturing Cooperative Research Centre (RMCRC), Victoria University (VU) and industry. This research aims to provide a starting point for addressing the current knowledge gaps in the transport industry workforce, with a specific focus on above track rolling stock. Its purpose is to understand what practical steps might be taken to address critical skills shortages currently facing the sector, and what is needed to build a sustainable and resilient future workforce. Findings from these assessments were used to inform a workshop with industry held in early 2020 to identify key actions and develop an interim plan [available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 140.464] to support these actions.

This report looks at the economics of the rail, tram and bus rolling stock manufacturing, maintenance and operations sector nationally, with particular reference to how procurement contributes to Victoria's economy and workforce. Currently, tests for government procurement are based on whether the public or private sector would provide better value-for-money. These tests have not yet been adapted for assessing trade-offs between overall project costs and specific levels of local content, employment and training. This report also ties employment to production within the sector and its supply chain, estimating the potential benefits to employment of local procurement and changes in production. This provides the foundation for understanding investment and training needs as industry builds new rolling stock for Victoria's expanding public transport sector, and maintains and operates existing rolling stock. It also examines the intangible benefits of employment on health and wellbeing.

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Over recent years, the mining investment boom provided substantial economic benefits to individuals, businesses and governments across Australia. As the investment phase has wound down, regional economies have generally transitioned well. The purpose of this study is to examine the regional geography of Australia's economic transition, since the mining investment boom, to identify those regions and localities that face significant challenges in successfully transitioning to a more sustainable economic base and the factors which will influence their capacity to adapt to changes in economic circumstances.

Chapter four of the report focuses on regional adaptive capacity. The analysis shows that people-related factors (including education, skills, employment, income and community cohesion) strongly shape adaptive capacity, particularly for communities in urban areas. Overall, communities in cities and inner regional areas have the highest capacity to adapt, largely due to their connectivity with other regions and markets, and the diverse skills and higher education levels of their workforce. Where inner regional areas have more limited adaptive capacity, this is frequently attributable to general social and economic disadvantage. Youth engagement in work or study is particularly low in remote and very remote communities (regardless of adaptive capacity) - 47 per cent on average compared with 65 per cent for all other types of regions. Low youth engagement can mean greater risk of unemployment and cycles of low pay and employment.

The need to improve human capital in regional communities as a precursor to overcoming high unemployment and persistent socioeconomic disadvantage was emphasised by some participants. The Upper Spencer Gulf Common Purpose Group observed 'a lack of relevant higher education and vocational training opportunities in the region'. The Northern Territory Government submitted that skill shortages have persisted despite 'ongoing investment in training and the delivery of a range of national workforce attraction programs'. Improving human capital does not necessarily involve increasing participation in higher education. Rather, improving capabilities is about improving the ability of people in a region to take advantage of employment opportunities and industry trends, and/or to take up business and entrepreneurial opportunities. Building capabilities in this sense might mean better targeting vocational or professional training courses to industry requirements, and promoting access to and participation in these forms of education and training.

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The present work proposes a novel methodology for the measurement of investment in human capital in the form of training. Differently from existing studies, the expenditures-based approach pursued encompasses investment in formal and on-the-job training, as well as in informal learning and yields estimates that account for both the opportunity and the direct cost of the different forms of training considered. Using a wide array of data sources, including new and rich individual-level data collected through the OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) survey as well as Labour Force Surveys (LFS) and System of National Accounts (SNA) data, the study proposes estimates of investment in training for the years 2011-2012.

These cover 22 OECD countries and are provided at both the economy and industry levels. Estimates suggest that average total investment in training corresponds to 6.7 per cent of gross value added (GVA), with investment in on-the-job training (amounting to 2.4 per cent of GVA, on average) that are substantially in line with those of previous literature. Wide sector and country heterogeneity in the relative importance of investment in formal and on-the-job and informal learning also emerge. On average, production appears more intensive in on-the-job training (relative to other training types) than overall services, but not relative to business services only. Public-oriented services such as education and health services invest a greater (smaller) proportion of total training expenditure in formal (on-the-job) training than other sectors and the overall economy.

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This training plan identifies the Western Australian Government's investment priorities for the vocational education and training (VET) system over the next four years. Through training and skill development, the VET system plays a critical role in ensuring that Western Australian industry has access to a well-trained and job ready workforce. The priorities outlined in the plan are aimed at ensuring that the VET system is able to target training investment at those occupational areas that are critical to the State's economic growth.

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This study attempted to identify key factors that are worth [being] considered when the government of a developing country designs and implements the pre-employment [vocational education and training] VET policies and systems. For this, seven policy cases of Korea were selected and analyzed according to four key policy issues that developing countries face. Key factors identified are: (1) different modes of delivery (school, vocational training institute, employer); (2) relative efficacy of vocational education to general education; (3) relative effectiveness of public provision to private provision; and (4) funding rationale (who should pay for VET). Analysis identified 10 common key factors: (1) changes in employment opportunities and skill demands; (2) society's perception on VET and preference of academic programs; (3) capacity and readiness of existing VET providers; (4) cognitive skills of students and trainees; (5) government's policies to induce private sector to the pre-employment VET and to form training market; (6) government's financial capacity and funding rationale; (7) private sector's capacity and willingness to finance and provide VET; (8) supporting mechanisms (qualification system, quality assurance, and information system); (9) political leadership (initiation and sustainability of policies); and (10) cooperation and coordination mechanisms among stakeholders (ministries of central government, local governments, industry, providers, etc.). For effective investment, this study suggests long-term, comprehensive and demand-driven approach.

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In this paper, [the authors] use firm-level data to analyse a firm's costs of recruiting apprentices in Germany. [They] find that recruitment costs amount on average to 600 Euros per hire (approximately one month of apprentice pay), but costs are heterogenous across firms and vary strongly with the training occupation. [The] results suggest that shortages in the local supply of apprentices and a high degree of competition among training firms in the region increase recruitment costs. Furthermore, [the authors] find that firms with a works council or an investment-oriented training strategy incur higher recruitment costs. Finally, marginal recruitment costs first increase but eventually decrease for firms hiring a large number of apprentices. [The] results are important in light of the increasing firm competition for talented school leavers induced by demographic change.

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This report uses business data to document what happened to a variety of indicators of labour hoarding, as well as investment and training, over the course of the 2008-09 recession. In particular, it shows how these patterns vary amongst different types of firms, including by size and coverage of the national minimum wage (NMW) (i.e. the proportion of workers who are paid at or below this level). It builds on the existing evidence in this area by: (1) providing more detailed evidence on the types of firms that seem to have hoarded the most labour, as indicated by those that have experienced the greatest falls in labour productivity, hours worked or real wages, that are most likely to have imposed nominal wage freezes or that have seen the biggest increases in the proportion of their workforce working part-time; (2) providing new insight into the extent to which these changes occurred within firms; (3) providing new evidence on the other ways in which firms have responded to the recession by reducing investment in physical or human capital and how this varies by type of firm; and, most importantly for the Low Pay Commission, (4) considering how the NMW regime has affected the ways in which firms have chosen (or been able) to respond to the recession.

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