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The inaugural Training Trends report [available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 151.302] last year aimed to help organisations make the most of their training investment and to identify how embedding quality from start to finish can maximise the impact for individuals and organisations alike. A year later, many of these challenges still apply as organisations focus on adapting to an everchanging economic landscape and the increasing demand for both new skills and knowledge of emerging technologies. In this follow-up research exploring the latest training trends, the authors asked learning and development (L&D) and finance leaders in over 600 large organisations1 where their training priorities lie and what challenges they face in securing investment.

Despite respondents recognising skills development as the leading driver of business growth, they also surfaced barriers preventing training from realising its potential. This report details top findings and industry insights, including actionable advice into how to build programmes that provide real return on investment for both employees and organisations.

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Employer-sponsored training is a critical component of Canada's overall skills development landscape, which includes formal and informal education and skills training. It helps bridge gaps between formal education and the specific skills required in workplaces, including gaps that emerge from technological, regulatory, and other economic and social changes. Despite the importance of employer-sponsored training, little is currently known about how much Canadian employers invest in training, what kinds of training they offer, how it is delivered, what impacts it has, or how investment and opportunities differ across sectors, regions, and employee characteristics. Canadian data on the levels, kinds, trends, and impacts of employer-sponsored training are largely unreliable, out of date, and/or ill-suited for comparison across time and jurisdictions. Developing even a rough picture of the employer-sponsored training ecosystem in Canada is difficult.

This report draws on available literature and data to develop the best possible picture of employer-sponsored training levels and trends; types and modes of delivery; what motivates and hinders training investment; and how investment is distributed across sectors, types of firms, and learners. Examining the limited data suggests that employer-sponsored training in Canada is: (1) limited: Canadian firms invest modestly in training and lag behind their international peers in rates and hours of instruction; (2) concentrated: larger firms are more likely than smaller firms to provide training. Employers in utilities, finance and insurance, and other knowledge-based technology-rich industries train at above-average rates, while firms in retail, forestry, and oil and gas extraction provide below-average levels of training. Firms in Quebec and Ontario are more likely to provide training than firms in the Prairies or Atlantic provinces; and (3) ROI and workplace-focused: given their concern for return on investment (ROI), firms tend to invest in training for immediate needs, such as onboarding and orientation, technology adoption, addressing skills gaps, and implementing innovations, and favour on-the-job and at-workplace modes of delivery over classroom and other external options.

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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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Using firm-level data covering the 27 EU countries, the UK and the US, we show that employers tend to reduce investment in training per employee after adopting advanced digital technologies (ADT). We estimate with a control function approach firm-level production functions augmented with two factors, the training stock per employee and digital technology use. We show that ADT use and employee training are substitutes in production, implying that an increase in the former negatively affects the marginal productivity of the latter, and that a decline in the cost of introducing ADT reduces employers' investment in training per employee. These findings point to challenges in realizing high levels of firm-sponsored training for employees in increasingly digital economies.

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For more than 25 years, the Adult Participation in Learning Survey has provided a unique insight into adult learning across the UK. It adopts a deliberately broad definition of learning, reflecting the fact that learning is about so much more than formal courses and qualifications. The good news is that, after a decade of declines during the 2010s, participation in learning remains back at levels last seen in the early 2000s: around two in five adults (42 per cent) say they have taken part in learning at some point in the last three years. The survey also demonstrates a shift in the number of adults learning independently and informally, with interest sparked during the pandemic and the rise of lockdown learning and helping to fill the gap as formal and publicly-funded learning fell over the previous decade. In the same way, the step change during the pandemic in learning at least partly online has sustained: 68 per cent of adults said at least part of their learning took place online. However, that doesn't mean we don't need to see increases in formal learning - qualifications can give people currency in the labour market where this is their reason for learning, and our research has shown employer investment in training has fallen 28 per cent since 2005, holding back productivity.

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Increasingly, technology is automating tasks previously performed by people. Automation has changed some jobs and eliminated others entirely. Thus some workers have had to retrain to learn the skills needed to keep their jobs or obtain new ones. Workers with lower levels of education who perform more routine tasks have tended to experience the greatest disruptions from automation, putting at risk jobs such as cashiers or clerical workers. This report examines challenges and opportunities to provide training to workers at risk of losing their jobs to automation.

Specifically, the research examined (1) what available data indicate about which workers are at risk of automation and the skills needed for in-demand jobs; and (2) what insights stakeholders offer for workforce programs to better serve displaced workers and those affected by automation. Although data doesn't explicitly identify workers at risk of losing their jobs, it offers insight into skills needed for jobs that are projected to be in-demand. Some workforce training programs focus on resume writing and interviewing skills and getting a job quickly, even if it pays little. But many stakeholders said the programs also need to focus on skills needed to do in-demand jobs, including critical thinking and 'soft skills' like social interaction. Some jobs that require such skills, e.g., nursing, may be less likely to be automated. Other recommendations from stakeholders included designing programs to maximize their accessibility, increasing investment in training, and collaborating with other workforce stakeholders to better serve workers displaced by automation.

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The political economy of skills formation represents a complex area of research since it explores the convergence between public policy ambitions and market economy. This particularly applies to apprenticeships policy, which sees private sector involvement in skills formation as fundamental. In England, technician-level skills shortages in advanced manufacturing are at a critical state and continue to worsen with the emergence of new technologies. This problem matters because technicians are important contributors to innovation, sectoral productivity, and the country’s economy. To address this, waves of structural and institutional reforms have been introduced by governments over the last three decades, shifting elements of skills planning between national, regional, and local institutions.

The latest reform of this sort was the localisation of the economic development policy, which encompassed skills formation. As such, Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) were introduced in 2011 as local institutions of governance aimed at enabling 'a strong, more responsive skills system', using local knowledge and expertise. Nevertheless, in the context of national administration of apprenticeships, nationally defined targets, national funding and taxation system, the actual role of LEPs with regards to motivating employers to engage in apprenticeship investment in order to achieve local economic growth appears to be unclear and unexplored.

This research explored the extent to which the institution of the LEP engaged in solving the skills shortage problem of trained technicians required by the advanced manufacturing sector in England. The thesis starts with an analysis of the context in which LEPs operate and take strategic decisions, using the theory of polycentricity (Chapter 4). Furthermore, Chapter 5 uses the IAD Framework to help analyse the influence LEPs have on firms' training investment decision making. Chapter 6 continues this analysis by presenting firms' patterns of interaction in training investment, as well as the outcomes that resulted from these behaviours.

The findings suggest that LEPs have potential for generating local cooperation in training investment. This potential can be further developed if the institution of the LEP explores its local scale of governance beyond its superficial skills capital investor role and into the support of homogenous club-like employer networks, intrinsic to the polycentric order of governance in economic development. Despite its weakened polycentric attributes, which limit the impact of its skills capital allocations, the evidence presented in this thesis suggests that there is a link between LEPs' local scale of operation and firms' decision to invest in training that addresses the collective act ion problem of technician skills shortages: the support for club-like, homogenous, and small-sized local employer networks. Consequently, these findings provided the answer to the research question raised in this thesis: 'how (if at all) has the institution of the LEP facilitated local cooperation in training investment, to address the collective action problem of technician skills shortages in advanced manufacturing industry in England?'.

The methodology used was the exploratory case study methodology, which enabled an extensive depth description of the institution of the LEP and its role in the local skills formation in England. The researcher used a triangulation of methods for data collection, which included interviews with 55 study participants, submissions of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, and quantitative national datasets such as Burning Glass Technologies and the Employer Skills Surveys (ESS). Study participants included representatives of LEPs, local employer networks and firms, training providers, and national/sectoral organisations.

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This report supplements findings from the main evaluation of the Construction Skills Fund (CSF). The CSF supported the development of 23 onsite training hubs which were mobile training facilities situated on construction sites. They delivered training for in-demand entry level construction skills. By offering trainees the opportunity to learn and apply their knowledge in a real-world industry-led environment, the hubs intended to bridge the gap between training and working in the construction industry. This research fills a gap in the main evaluation by focusing on the medium-term learner perspectives and experiences of looking for work after completing the course and career and learning progression. A qualitative method was used to provide deep insight into whether and how participants were able to enter employment in the construction sector and any barriers they experienced. In total, 30 interviews were achieved with respondents between nine months and two years after they completed training. The sample included respondents in a range of situations and from a range of backgrounds.

While some respondents felt capable and understood how to access work, especially those with wider networks and contacts in the sector, other motivated respondents were not able to do so. While the [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 pandemic undoubtably affected labour market experiences, participants experienced other barriers to entering and sustaining work in the sector. These barriers included: a lack of suitable local roles, a lack of support to enter work, and poor early experiences in the sector. The CSF programme successfully trained motivated participants to become employment and site ready. It could have placed greater emphasis on supporting trained participants to enter work more consistently. This would have been likely to have improved the ability of the programme to achieve the job entry target and enabled employers and participants to reap fuller benefits of the training investment.

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European firms have increasingly invested in training of employees but differences across countries and types of firms remain - and the [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 shock may have exacerbated them. This report analyses European firms' investment in training over the last six years examining trends, factors supporting training investment as well as the impact of the COVID-19 shock. We base the empirical analysis on a unique dataset, the European Investment Bank's Investment Survey (EIBIS), which allows tracking corporate training investment on a yearly basis. To understand dynamics underpinning firms' decision to invest in their workforce, we examine transition patterns and employ dynamic panel data estimation. Finally, we analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on firms' investment in workforce training and transitions in and out of training.

We find that despite a slow upward trend in training investment observed in recent years, supported by labour market recovery, differences across firms and countries have persisted. The pandemic risks aggravating these, through its asymmetric impact on labour markets and differences in corporate innovation, firm structure and resilience. While firm training can be an important element for firms and their workforce to adjust to the post-pandemic environment, asymmetries in training investment could make it harder for those already lagging. The paper concludes with a discussion of policy implications.

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In the Autumn of 2019, many businesses across the UK were struggling to access and retain the skills they needed, impacting on productivity and growth while, at the same time, annual business investment in training was falling year on year. In response, [British Chambers of Commerce] BCC convened the Workplace Training and Development Commission to consider the question 'How can we achieve a world-class system for retraining and upskilling our workforce to take advantage of rapid changes in technology, working practices, and industrial and consumer trends?' The commission's inquiry into workplace training and development confirms what research data and business feedback has been saying for many years - the skills system is not working for employers or the workforce. Pervasive skills shortages are damaging business productivity and employers still face too many barriers to accessing the training they need. Part of the solution is to boost the capacity of workplaces to act as sites of learning and incentivise more businesses to invest in training and reskilling the adult workforce. At the same time, the education system must ensure that young people enter the workplace with the basic and soft skills they will need to be successful.

Businesses recognise they have a responsibility to invest in the skills of their adult workforce, yet too few firms are doing so proactively. Overall, business investment in training is falling year-on-year and, more recently, the impact of the Coronavirus [COVID-19] pandemic on revenues and cashflow has reduced resources for training and associated costs still further, jeopardising a skills-led recovery. The speed and scale of the post-pandemic economic transformation also requires a skills system with the agility to respond to high levels of unemployment, the trading down of skilled workers in the labour market, and the overall impact on employment opportunities for low skilled workers. Now, more than ever before, businesses need an agile skills system that helps them to continuously train and develop their workforce in response to the evolving business environment. A skills-led recovery will support business to innovate, and be more productive and competitive, but everyone in the workplace must be included in the transformation journey. Our report focuses on a long-term vision for the skills system and the steps we need to take as businesses and policymakers to get there.

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